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US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after arriving at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Sept. 7, 2025. (AP/Yonhap)

By Jung Yu-gyung, international affairs reporter

The flight from Atlanta to Seoul takes over 15 hours. I’ve heard Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine has caused this journey to take an even longer route than before, as planes are forced to avoid flying over the Arctic. The gate area for flights to Korea at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the busiest airport in the US, was bustling with people returning to Korea and travelers looking forward to new experiences. It occurred to me that for the Korean workers who had been detained, this juncture must have been where they could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

The atmosphere had been strikingly different just a few days earlier, when I boarded a flight to the US to participate in the Korea Press Foundation’s Korea-US Journalists Exchange program. There was some tense commotion at the departure gate when some journalists’ ESTA applications were suddenly canceled and then reinstated. Even with an invitation letter in hand, I couldn’t hide my anxiety at immigration.

The recent crackdown by US immigration authorities on the Hyundai-LG Energy Solution battery plant in Georgia has caused ripples in both Washington and Atlanta. Government officials I met in the US expressed their regret behind closed doors, unanimously stating it never should have happened. While concerned that this incident could negatively impact economic cooperation between South Korea and the US, they appeared cautious about openly criticizing the Trump administration. Reluctant to make statements that might irritate the president, even government officials seemed to struggle with discerning Trump’s true intentions.

No one knows what Trump is thinking. This is the unanimous refrain from the think tank experts I met here. Early in his presidency, most predicted that Trump would assemble a Cabinet of hard-liners, increase pressure on China, and compel South Korea to join in on checking Beijing. However, experts I met recently seemed to concur that Trump’s foreign policy could change at any moment based on his personal political and economic interests. In other words, they said, Trump prioritizes his own gains above all else.

In response to the factory raid, Trump initially took a firm stance, framing it as a crackdown on illegal immigrants. However, as concerns grew about negative impacts on foreign corporate investment, he later backed down, stating that skilled workers are “welcome.” This mirrors his past approach on visas for Chinese students, where he initially pushed for strong measures before flip-flopping back to welcoming them.

During a visit to a Republican Party chapter in the Atlanta metro area, I got the impression that local residents were largely unaware that Korean workers had been detained despite generally working within legal bounds. Instead, members voiced significant dissatisfaction by saying the Hyundai plant hasn’t created as many jobs as anticipated. As Georgia is a swing state, local politicians were more sensitive to residents’ sentiments than international diplomacy. One foreign affairs source pointed out that Gov. Brian Kemp’s history of not actively supporting Trump during the last election might also explain why he refrained from speaking out about the raid.

The more time passes, the more it seems the Trump administration’s top priority is rallying its base for the midterm elections rather than foreign policy. Amid rising costs of living and deepening polarization, anti-immigration policies are becoming a tool to redirect Americans’ discontent toward specific populations.

With the death of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk now dominating the headlines, working-level officials have been able to make decent progress on cleaning up the mess after the raid in Georgia. “Setting a million little fires to keep the press from focusing for too long on any one thing is part of Trump’s strategy,” a local reporter told me during the exchange program. As I returned to Korea, one question weighed on my mind: If even Americans can’t tell what their foreign policy will be tomorrow, how is any other country supposed to respond? 

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]