{"id":103918,"date":"2025-11-19T10:47:34","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T10:47:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=103918"},"modified":"2025-11-19T10:47:34","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T10:47:34","slug":"white-house-has-apologised-over-georgia-raid-says-hyundai-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=103918","title":{"rendered":"White House has apologised over Georgia raid, says Hyundai boss"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hyundai chief executive Jos\u00e9 Mu\u00f1oz said on Wednesday that the White House phoned him personally to apologise for a massive immigration raid at a factory in the US state of Georgia.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a conference of business leaders in Singapore, Mr Mu\u00f1oz said the governor of Georgia had also called him and said \u201cI don\u2019t know what happened, this is not state jurisdiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

In September,\u00a0more than 300 South Korean workers were detained\u00a0in a raid at a battery plant operated by Hyundai and electronics giant LG, raising tensions between Washington and Seoul.<\/p>\n

The BBC has contacted the White House and the governor of Georgia for comment.<\/p>\n

During the raid, workers were forced to sit on the floor of the factory as officers shackled their legs in scenes that sparked outrage in South Korea.<\/p>\n

The workers were held in detention for more than a week before being flown home\u00a0after the South Korean government held urgent talks with the US.<\/p>\n

The company warned in September that the raid would delay the plant\u2019s opening due to labour shortages.<\/p>\n

Mr Mu\u00f1oz said during a panel discussion at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum that he believed that someone had \u201cmade a phone call and made it look like there were illegal immigrants\u201d at the plant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s absolutely not the case,\u201d said Mr Mu\u00f1oz.<\/p>\n

The raid was \u201ca bad surprise\u201d but the company remained committed to manufacturing in the US, he added.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump has previously said that he was \u201cvery much opposed\u201d to the raid.<\/p>\n

Trump said at the time that the US had an \u201cunderstanding\u201d with the world on the need to bring in experts to set up specialised facilities and train local workers.<\/p>\n

Despite the raid increasing tensions between the US and South Korea, the two countries announced in October\u00a0that they had reached a broad trade deal.<\/p>\n

Under the agreement, the two sides reduced reciprocal tariffs from 25% to 15%, while South Korea said it would invest $350bn (\u00a3266.5bn) in the US.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"WhiteHyundai chief executive Jos\u00e9 Mu\u00f1oz said on Wednesday that the White House phoned him personally to apologise for a massive immigration raid at a factory in the US state of Georgia.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11291,12792,1910,117,10,9,2477],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-georgia","category-hyundai","category-international","category-news","category-politics","category-popular","category-white-house"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103918\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}