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Crazy request of $350 billion investment by SK. That's 20% of it's estimated 2025 GDP of $1700 billion. Could the US pledge 20% (6000 billion) to some other cou

Crazy request of $350 billion investment by SK. That's 20% of it's estimated 2025 GDP of $1700 billion. Could the US pledge 20% (6000 billion) to some other country? Awfully nice of Myung to be so understanding after the US arrest of 300+ SK workers in Georgia a month ago.

iddan 1y ago
Arrest of illegal workers that is
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- DaSHacka 1y ago
  Strange, how they always seem to 'forget' that part
  - Modified3019 1y ago
    What specific illegal activity was happening? Honest question, I’ve not seen any reference to such a thing before your and the other guy’s comment.
    - weberer 1y ago
      >The individuals arrested during the operation were found to be working illegally, in violation of the terms of their visas and/or statuses. People on short-term or recreational visas are not authorized to work in the U.S. https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-leads-multi-agency-operation-targeting-illegal-employment-and-federal-crimes https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-leads-multi-agency-ope...
      - nosianu 1y ago
        That is wrong. Summary: https://www.hooyou.com/b1-visa/b1-activities.html https://www.hooyou.com/b1-visa/b1-activities.html I myself once worked for a large German company at a large US software company, porting code to my company's platform. After a few flights back home to Germany and back immigration took me into the backroom, and I described in detail what I did. They stamped my passport and let me in for another 6 months of that work. I did that for a year before switching to another visa. It also worked out because I never even tried the slightest evasion and gave them everything I got, it's not like I cared, if I had been sent back, so what, I had no desire to immigrate. I'm sure under the exact same circumstances somebody giving them a worse impression of hiding something might not have been approved. But in any case, it's definitely legal, you CAN do some kinds of actual work on just a B1, even for an entire year. It was legal, because I still was 100% employed and paid in Germany, and the job could not be done otherwise, the US company would not send us their source code. Similarly, in the context of the Korean raid. One other important point you neglect is that from what I read the legality of the activities were never even questioned to begin with! They simply arrested everyone. They did not know what they wer4e doing, they just needed the arrest numbers because ICE is under pressure themselves. They did not even have any interpreters. That makes any argument about the legality useless, since it didn't even matter for the arrests.
        weberer 1y ago
        The parent comment asked what the alleged illegal activity was, and I provided a primary source straight from ICE. I'm not interested in debating your anecdotal experience or speculation. Whether they're wrong is for the courts to decide. I'm sure we'll hear about it soon enough.
        nosianu 1y ago
        You are attempting to shift the goalpost after I countered your wrong assertion directly. You wrote a short and very specific post, it is still there. It does not matter that you quoted the ICE, not these days with all the lies, and since they never checked the people they arrested if they actually violated anything to begin with, that quote is useless. There is enough background information available about how that raid went off. They did not check before taking every single one of those people away. And > "People on short-term or recreational visas are not authorized to work in the U.S." is just plain wrong (for B1, but also ESTA -- https://www.nnuimmigration.com/esta-business/ https://www.nnuimmigration.com/esta-business/ "Incidental business activity"), no matter whom you quote! Your attempt to dismiss it based on me providing additional proof in form of an immigration-encounter directly countering your assertion is noted, but telling. In addition, it should never come to having to go to the courts in the first place!! Taking away likely lawfully acting people in handcuffs to a very uncomfortable stay in ICE custody already causes severe damage, no court can undo that! The only reason they can get away with it for the moment is because South Korea needs the military cooperation because of increasing threats at home. But these methods look more like those of the mafia than that of a civilized state. I'm saying that while not even minding one bit that/if the US now acts against illegal immigration, I never understood why they just let it happen for decades. I understand certain businesses did well with very low-cost labor that they could easily control and exploit due to the illegal status of the workers. The problem is that they now go far beyond that, because of the administrations desire for numbers and headlines, and pictures. And if you have to rely on getting your rights through the courts you already lost - the system is expensive, time-consuming, and slow. Getting exonerated later after you were dragged away and put into prison clothing does not undo the damage! Having to go to court is additional punishment for normal people.
- banku_brougham 1y ago
  this comment is troubling, as I understand they all had visas to work temporarily in building the facility
- WastedCucumber 1y ago
  Do you have a source describing the "illegality"? This is genuine question - I have not found a source digging into the legal question. The best I could find was a suggestion that their visa waivers were in fact correct for the purpose, except for the fact that their companies were using visa waivers over and over again. Or maybe the workers were? I'm not sure.
  - palmfacehn 1y ago
    You have posed a reasonable question with good intentions. A simple Google search reveals: >U.S. authorities said some of the detained Korean workers had illegally crossed the U.S. border, while others entered legally but had expired visas or entered on visa waivers that prohibited them from working. From PBS, a source with a well known editorial stance against the current administration. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/south-korean-workers-return-home-after-days-in-detention-following-us-immigration-raid#:~:text=U.S.%20authorities%20said%20some%20of,that%20prohibited%20them%20from%20working. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/south-korean-workers-retu... >Like many of the Koreans who were working there, advocates and lawyers representing the non-Korean workers caught up in the raid say that some who were detained had legal authorization to work in the United States. LA Times, similar https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-09-14/families-in-crisis-after-massive-immigration-raid-at-hyundai-plant-in-georgia https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-09-14/famili... With any of these contentious partisan issues it is important to be wary of cherry picking. Typically events are selectively reported to fit a given partisan agenda. It would be extreme to believe that entire groups are being arbitrarily detained and deported. Similarly, it isn't unreasonable to expect mistakes to be made. The reasonable thing to do with extreme claims such as the ones made in this thread is to do a simple Google search before engaging in partisan flames. It has become almost impossible to have a reasonable discussion here on any topic which may tangentially involve Trump.
    - ap99 1y ago
      It's almost impossible because one side goes into a tizzy when Trump's name is mentioned, then the other side or just people in the middle like you have to calmly layout their argument with evidence. There is one side that makes it impossible. Let's not confuse that.
- antonvs 1y ago
  If that’s true, shouldn’t the “illegal” label more correctly apply to the activity of the company knowingly employing them? What do you believe the workers did wrong?
  - lmm 1y ago
    Visas are granted to individuals not companies. Working outside your visa status is illegal in most developed countries.
    - antonvs 1y ago
      The issue here was that subcontracting firms arranged to bring hundreds of people from South Korean. SK companies, including LG Energy Solution, reportedly advised workers and subcontracting firms to use the ESTA visa waiver, even after other visa applications had been repeatedly rejected. If that’s not illegal, perhaps the legal system needs revamping. And blaming the workers in a situation like that is immoral scapegoating, pure and simple. It’s very on-brand for the US conception of labor rights, though.
      - lmm 1y ago
        > If that’s not illegal, perhaps the legal system needs revamping. Advising people to commit visa fraud might well be illegal under US law, but given that it all happened in SK, would SK be interested in extraditing them? And would the US taxpayer support spending what that costs? Knowingly hiring visa fraudsters is probably illegal, but proving intent would be difficult. And if you lower the burden of proof too far then companies will find any excuse to not hire non-white people, which probably isn't what you want. The ESTA application emphasizes that it's personal and the conditions you have to comply with. I think that's well and good - if anything I think it would be better to scrap the H1-B system of tying people's work visas to specific jobs, that's a big part of what leads to immigration suppressing wages.
- saubeidl 1y ago
  [flagged]
Hilift 1y ago
Completely impractical. Look at other countries. France and the UK are under enormous budget pressure, mostly due to the cost of funding the defense of the illegal war in Ukraine, but also due to other costly recent policy decisions. Both countries aren't considered poor, but they now have difficult decisions to make. That means anyone who thinks these investments such as these by any country can be from taxes or savings elsewhere are delusional. It would have to be loans. Now look at Australia. It committed to a $368 billion ($1 billion per month for 30 years) submarine deal with the US. This program will never deliver any perceivable value to Australian people, it is more strategically beneficial for reviving a failing boat and ship building industry in the US. The US itself is supposedly building a new Columbia-class ballistic submarine at a cost of $110 each? These are simply confabulated, made up numbers. And why is Korea building valuable, current generation facilities in other countries? It would make sense if it would result in for example, the sale of more Korean automobiles, but it isn't. It is basically a shakedown ("tribute"). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/15/aukus-will-cost-australia-368bn-what-if-there-was-a-better-cheaper-defence-strategy https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/15/aukus-will-cos...
- epolanski 1y ago
  > mostly due to the cost of funding the defense of the illegal war in Ukraine What is a "legal" war supposed to be?
  - jltsiren 1y ago
    War is illegal under the international law for all UN member states. The main exceptions are self defense or when authorized by the UN Security Council. Of course, nobody really cares about that.
    - r_lee 1y ago
      Was the idea here that because the UN declares that war is illegal, that no country will do war anymore? I mean, wtf.
jampekka 1y ago
> Could the US pledge 20% (6000 billion) to some other country? Maybe to destroy it? :)
- jabl 1y ago
  $6T is in the ballpark of the costs of the Afghanistan and Gulf War episode II (+subsequent occupation) foreign policy adventures.
mrtksn 1y ago
> Could the US pledge 20% (6000 billion) to some other country? Of course US can do that, it can provide a temporary boost to the leader of that country. It doesn't mean anything other than that. Qatar pledged 1 trillion dollars investment in US: https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/05/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-secures-historic-1-2-trillion-economic-commitment-in-qatar/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/05/fact-sheet-pr... Their GDP is 200B USD. EU is similar, on 200B Budget they promised 600B investment. As you can see, %20 of GDP investment is a rookie number. People do 3x to 5x of GDP these days. I don't know why Koreans are making fuss of it, maybe they don't get the Western politics?
- ilsubyeega 1y ago
  I'm Korean. I really really don't know. Every day, I wake up to every new news: - A tariff agreement signed, but then they immediately mention a different percentage (Japan) - Korean(mostly) engineers arrested on suspicion of participating in the construction of a US factory (IIRC it is not claimed whether it's legal or not) - H-1B visa situation Looking at the current situation, there's no "guarantee" of tariff reductions through huge investment to US. Also there is no justification for the argument that countries that do not invest should do so as other countries do.
  - mrtksn 1y ago
    IMHO the situation is this: Are your actions make Trump feel good? The feeling can be induced by making him richer or boost his ego. Those "X country will invest in US" stuff are about boosting his ego through good press. No one follows up anything, they use the "flood the zone" strategy, which doesn't allow the public to have long attention span. Also, it appears that Trump likes numbers around $600B. Everyone is "investing" around $600B, even companies like Apple. When Mark Zuckerberg was asked what Meta invests, he threw the same number and later was caught ona hot mic asking Trump if he liked the number as he admitted that he was not prepared. So yes, just say you are investing $600B in USA thanks to Trump and smile to the cameras. Don't worry about the money, this is for boosting his ego and not about the money. Actually investing is dangerous, if it goes bad(like with factory incident) it creates problems for his campaign, helps his opponents and may hurt his ego, just do the show no need to complicate things. If you want to do the money thing, you invest in his crypto or donate to his campaign etc.

iddan 1y ago

Arrest of illegal workers that is

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
DaSHacka 1y ago
Strange, how they always seem to 'forget' that part
- Modified3019 1y ago
  What specific illegal activity was happening? Honest question, I’ve not seen any reference to such a thing before your and the other guy’s comment.
  - weberer 1y ago
    >The individuals arrested during the operation were found to be working illegally, in violation of the terms of their visas and/or statuses. People on short-term or recreational visas are not authorized to work in the U.S. https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-leads-multi-agency-operation-targeting-illegal-employment-and-federal-crimes https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-leads-multi-agency-ope...
    - nosianu 1y ago
      That is wrong. Summary: https://www.hooyou.com/b1-visa/b1-activities.html https://www.hooyou.com/b1-visa/b1-activities.html I myself once worked for a large German company at a large US software company, porting code to my company's platform. After a few flights back home to Germany and back immigration took me into the backroom, and I described in detail what I did. They stamped my passport and let me in for another 6 months of that work. I did that for a year before switching to another visa. It also worked out because I never even tried the slightest evasion and gave them everything I got, it's not like I cared, if I had been sent back, so what, I had no desire to immigrate. I'm sure under the exact same circumstances somebody giving them a worse impression of hiding something might not have been approved. But in any case, it's definitely legal, you CAN do some kinds of actual work on just a B1, even for an entire year. It was legal, because I still was 100% employed and paid in Germany, and the job could not be done otherwise, the US company would not send us their source code. Similarly, in the context of the Korean raid. One other important point you neglect is that from what I read the legality of the activities were never even questioned to begin with! They simply arrested everyone. They did not know what they wer4e doing, they just needed the arrest numbers because ICE is under pressure themselves. They did not even have any interpreters. That makes any argument about the legality useless, since it didn't even matter for the arrests.
      - weberer 1y ago
        The parent comment asked what the alleged illegal activity was, and I provided a primary source straight from ICE. I'm not interested in debating your anecdotal experience or speculation. Whether they're wrong is for the courts to decide. I'm sure we'll hear about it soon enough.
        nosianu 1y ago
        You are attempting to shift the goalpost after I countered your wrong assertion directly. You wrote a short and very specific post, it is still there. It does not matter that you quoted the ICE, not these days with all the lies, and since they never checked the people they arrested if they actually violated anything to begin with, that quote is useless. There is enough background information available about how that raid went off. They did not check before taking every single one of those people away. And > "People on short-term or recreational visas are not authorized to work in the U.S." is just plain wrong (for B1, but also ESTA -- https://www.nnuimmigration.com/esta-business/ https://www.nnuimmigration.com/esta-business/ "Incidental business activity"), no matter whom you quote! Your attempt to dismiss it based on me providing additional proof in form of an immigration-encounter directly countering your assertion is noted, but telling. In addition, it should never come to having to go to the courts in the first place!! Taking away likely lawfully acting people in handcuffs to a very uncomfortable stay in ICE custody already causes severe damage, no court can undo that! The only reason they can get away with it for the moment is because South Korea needs the military cooperation because of increasing threats at home. But these methods look more like those of the mafia than that of a civilized state. I'm saying that while not even minding one bit that/if the US now acts against illegal immigration, I never understood why they just let it happen for decades. I understand certain businesses did well with very low-cost labor that they could easily control and exploit due to the illegal status of the workers. The problem is that they now go far beyond that, because of the administrations desire for numbers and headlines, and pictures. And if you have to rely on getting your rights through the courts you already lost - the system is expensive, time-consuming, and slow. Getting exonerated later after you were dragged away and put into prison clothing does not undo the damage! Having to go to court is additional punishment for normal people.
banku_brougham 1y ago
this comment is troubling, as I understand they all had visas to work temporarily in building the facility
WastedCucumber 1y ago
Do you have a source describing the "illegality"? This is genuine question - I have not found a source digging into the legal question. The best I could find was a suggestion that their visa waivers were in fact correct for the purpose, except for the fact that their companies were using visa waivers over and over again. Or maybe the workers were? I'm not sure.
- palmfacehn 1y ago
  You have posed a reasonable question with good intentions. A simple Google search reveals: >U.S. authorities said some of the detained Korean workers had illegally crossed the U.S. border, while others entered legally but had expired visas or entered on visa waivers that prohibited them from working. From PBS, a source with a well known editorial stance against the current administration. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/south-korean-workers-return-home-after-days-in-detention-following-us-immigration-raid#:~:text=U.S.%20authorities%20said%20some%20of,that%20prohibited%20them%20from%20working. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/south-korean-workers-retu... >Like many of the Koreans who were working there, advocates and lawyers representing the non-Korean workers caught up in the raid say that some who were detained had legal authorization to work in the United States. LA Times, similar https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-09-14/families-in-crisis-after-massive-immigration-raid-at-hyundai-plant-in-georgia https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-09-14/famili... With any of these contentious partisan issues it is important to be wary of cherry picking. Typically events are selectively reported to fit a given partisan agenda. It would be extreme to believe that entire groups are being arbitrarily detained and deported. Similarly, it isn't unreasonable to expect mistakes to be made. The reasonable thing to do with extreme claims such as the ones made in this thread is to do a simple Google search before engaging in partisan flames. It has become almost impossible to have a reasonable discussion here on any topic which may tangentially involve Trump.
  - ap99 1y ago
    It's almost impossible because one side goes into a tizzy when Trump's name is mentioned, then the other side or just people in the middle like you have to calmly layout their argument with evidence. There is one side that makes it impossible. Let's not confuse that.
antonvs 1y ago
If that’s true, shouldn’t the “illegal” label more correctly apply to the activity of the company knowingly employing them? What do you believe the workers did wrong?
- lmm 1y ago
  Visas are granted to individuals not companies. Working outside your visa status is illegal in most developed countries.
  - antonvs 1y ago
    The issue here was that subcontracting firms arranged to bring hundreds of people from South Korean. SK companies, including LG Energy Solution, reportedly advised workers and subcontracting firms to use the ESTA visa waiver, even after other visa applications had been repeatedly rejected. If that’s not illegal, perhaps the legal system needs revamping. And blaming the workers in a situation like that is immoral scapegoating, pure and simple. It’s very on-brand for the US conception of labor rights, though.
    - lmm 1y ago
      > If that’s not illegal, perhaps the legal system needs revamping. Advising people to commit visa fraud might well be illegal under US law, but given that it all happened in SK, would SK be interested in extraditing them? And would the US taxpayer support spending what that costs? Knowingly hiring visa fraudsters is probably illegal, but proving intent would be difficult. And if you lower the burden of proof too far then companies will find any excuse to not hire non-white people, which probably isn't what you want. The ESTA application emphasizes that it's personal and the conditions you have to comply with. I think that's well and good - if anything I think it would be better to scrap the H1-B system of tying people's work visas to specific jobs, that's a big part of what leads to immigration suppressing wages.
saubeidl 1y ago
[flagged]

Hilift 1y ago

Completely impractical. Look at other countries. France and the UK are under enormous budget pressure, mostly due to the cost of funding the defense of the illegal war in Ukraine, but also due to other costly recent policy decisions. Both countries aren't considered poor, but they now have difficult decisions to make. That means anyone who thinks these investments such as these by any country can be from taxes or savings elsewhere are delusional. It would have to be loans. Now look at Australia. It committed to a $368 billion ($1 billion per month for 30 years) submarine deal with the US. This program will never deliver any perceivable value to Australian people, it is more strategically beneficial for reviving a failing boat and ship building industry in the US. The US itself is supposedly building a new Columbia-class ballistic submarine at a cost of $110 each? These are simply confabulated, made up numbers. And why is Korea building valuable, current generation facilities in other countries? It would make sense if it would result in for example, the sale of more Korean automobiles, but it isn't. It is basically a shakedown ("tribute"). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/15/aukus-will-cost-australia-368bn-what-if-there-was-a-better-cheaper-defence-strategy https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/15/aukus-will-cos...

epolanski 1y ago
> mostly due to the cost of funding the defense of the illegal war in Ukraine What is a "legal" war supposed to be?
- jltsiren 1y ago
  War is illegal under the international law for all UN member states. The main exceptions are self defense or when authorized by the UN Security Council. Of course, nobody really cares about that.
  - r_lee 1y ago
    Was the idea here that because the UN declares that war is illegal, that no country will do war anymore? I mean, wtf.

jampekka 1y ago

> Could the US pledge 20% (6000 billion) to some other country? Maybe to destroy it? :)

jabl 1y ago
$6T is in the ballpark of the costs of the Afghanistan and Gulf War episode II (+subsequent occupation) foreign policy adventures.

mrtksn 1y ago

> Could the US pledge 20% (6000 billion) to some other country? Of course US can do that, it can provide a temporary boost to the leader of that country. It doesn't mean anything other than that. Qatar pledged 1 trillion dollars investment in US: https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/05/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-secures-historic-1-2-trillion-economic-commitment-in-qatar/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/05/fact-sheet-pr... Their GDP is 200B USD. EU is similar, on 200B Budget they promised 600B investment. As you can see, %20 of GDP investment is a rookie number. People do 3x to 5x of GDP these days. I don't know why Koreans are making fuss of it, maybe they don't get the Western politics?

ilsubyeega 1y ago
I'm Korean. I really really don't know. Every day, I wake up to every new news: - A tariff agreement signed, but then they immediately mention a different percentage (Japan) - Korean(mostly) engineers arrested on suspicion of participating in the construction of a US factory (IIRC it is not claimed whether it's legal or not) - H-1B visa situation Looking at the current situation, there's no "guarantee" of tariff reductions through huge investment to US. Also there is no justification for the argument that countries that do not invest should do so as other countries do.
- mrtksn 1y ago
  IMHO the situation is this: Are your actions make Trump feel good? The feeling can be induced by making him richer or boost his ego. Those "X country will invest in US" stuff are about boosting his ego through good press. No one follows up anything, they use the "flood the zone" strategy, which doesn't allow the public to have long attention span. Also, it appears that Trump likes numbers around $600B. Everyone is "investing" around $600B, even companies like Apple. When Mark Zuckerberg was asked what Meta invests, he threw the same number and later was caught ona hot mic asking Trump if he liked the number as he admitted that he was not prepared. So yes, just say you are investing $600B in USA thanks to Trump and smile to the cameras. Don't worry about the money, this is for boosting his ego and not about the money. Actually investing is dangerous, if it goes bad(like with factory incident) it creates problems for his campaign, helps his opponents and may hurt his ego, just do the show no need to complicate things. If you want to do the money thing, you invest in his crypto or donate to his campaign etc.