| A chartered Korean Air jet landed in Seoul this afternoon with more than 300 workers who were detained in a raid at a Hyundai-LG battery plant in Georgia last week. Bloomberg reporters Hyonhee Shin and Denny Thomas tell us how Koreans are reacting to the arrests. Plus: A new episode of the Everybody’s Business podcast, a visit with the CEO of Axel Springer, and a look at the success of the WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries. If this email was forwarded to you, click here to sign up. For generations, South Koreans have woven the American story into their own: Local troops patrolled with GIs to defend the demilitarized zone along the North Korean border, moviegoers chased popcorn with Coca-Cola while enjoying Hollywood blockbusters, and students spruced up their resumes with Ivy League degrees. The US was the best friend, the model, the future, a trusted ally and aspirational partner. A few hours in Georgia last week threaten to unravel those decades of goodwill. On Sept. 4, hundreds of state and federal agents descended on a building near Savannah where workers were putting the final touches on a $7.6 billion battery plant for Hyundai Motor Co. The joint venture with LG Energy Solution Ltd. had been billed as a crown jewel of America’s clean-energy boom. By the end of the day, agents with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement had taken almost 500 people into custody, more than 300 of them Koreans. These engineers, technicians and project specialists, most handcuffed or shackled, were walked to waiting vans and buses, then transported to a sprawling detention center about two hours’ drive to the south, a few miles from the Florida state line. Photos and video clips of the raids soon flooded South Korean social media, sparking outrage. “They were treated as if they were illegal immigrants or drug smugglers or even worse,” says Kim Wang-jung, chief executive officer of Canatech Co., a Korean company whose employees at the site were detained in the raid.  A video provided by ICE shows manufacturing plant employees waiting to have their legs shackled at the Hyundai Motor Group’s electric vehicle plant in Ellabell, Georgia. Photographer: Corey Bullard/US Immigration and Customs Enforcement/AP Photo South Korea’s foreign minister quickly jetted to Washington to try to undo the damage. On Thursday the two sides settled on a compromise that allowed most of the detainees to be released, leaving the country voluntarily to avoid deportation orders that could bar them from returning to the US for years. A charter flight ferrying the workers home arrived in Seoul today to a heroes’ welcome, with journalists and family members jostling for position to see them deplane. “The anxiety gave me insomnia,” said Cho Yangsoon, 67, while waiting for her son who had been working at the plant for the past three months. “For days there was no word, no call, nothing but the news. It was suffocating.” Just two weeks earlier, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung had met with his US counterpart in Washington, announcing billions in new investment. Seoul had staked political capital by embracing President Donald Trump’s “America First” revival, casting South Korea as a partner in jobs, factories and clean-tech ambition. That made the raid doubly injurious, says Kim Tae-Hyung, a political science professor at Soongsil University in Seoul. “It’s like a stab in the back,” he says. “Koreans can’t help but feel infuriated.” In Georgia, construction halted. Schedules slipped. Managers scrambled to replace missing hands with local crews unfamiliar with specialized equipment. And Seoul fumed, with business leaders privately asking: If this is how America treats its closest allies, does it make sense to bet billions on operations there? “Korean companies are finding it difficult to shake off anxiety about US policy uncertainty,” the conservative daily Chosun Ilbo wrote in an editorial. “This raises fundamental questions about what the United States truly means by ‘alliance’ and whether investment incentives will remain valid even after a change in administration.” Trump’s response: “Foreign companies are welcome,” he told reporters, “but they must follow our laws and hire American workers.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem insisted the action wouldn’t deter investment but rather signal that “the rules apply equally to everyone.” The EV plant will eventually rise (though Hyundai now says it will be delayed by months). Batteries will roll off its lines, powering cars on American highways. But for many Koreans, the memory of their shackled compatriots will remain. “I’m wondering how the US ended up like this,” says Christine Jung, a 28-year-old who was an exchange student in the US a few years ago. “I don’t know whether I’d go if I were in college now. It’s not the country we used to know.” | 
