Kemp and Warnock: Korea, Billions for Georgia, and Two Candidates Who Dropped the Ball
History matters, unless you're running for office in Georgia where what happened yesterday will do just fine.
Bipartisan bonhomie is rare in Georgia these days, much less festive appearances by Republicans and Democrats side by side. But bygones were bygones last week when the parties’ political candidates showed up to break ground at the state’s newest blockbuster investment. Hunched forward, shovels gripped, and sporting camera-ready grins, one running for governor, the other US senator, not surprisingly both took credit while turning up the dirt.
Brian Kemp and Raphael Warnock were inaugurating construction at Hyundai’s 3000-acre, “meta-factory” site in Bryan County next door to Savannah. Like kissing babies and backslapping bubbas, their patter came straight from their campaign scripts. The platitudes praised the Korean company for investing in a state-of-the-art plant that will build electric cars. Unfortunately, neither mentioned the bedrock, including the eight decades of history, that underpins the Hyundai billions heading Georgia’s way.
To critique Kemp and Warnock, both in heated re-election campaigns, for touting the mega-investment as their doing in no way diminishes the success. Georgia landed a Kia plant—a Hyundai nameplate—in 2010 after Alabama attracted a $1.5 billion Hyundai factory in 2005. The state’s latest effort has rooted the Korean automotive giant firmly in the region. Along with SK Corporation, a major Korean firm that has opened its new $2.6 billion battery manufacturing facility in north Georgia, the car makers’ investment is delivering technology and jobs that will put the state at the EV revolution’s cutting edge.
Hyundai, needless to say, is betting big on the United States. A $26.5 billion corporation, the company is sinking $5.5 billion into the plant set to open in 2025. Eventually it will have 8000 employees turning out 500,000 electric vehicles a year. Hyundai is one of South Korea’s four largest chaebol—conglomerates backed by the government decades ago to boost economic development. Its political throw weight in Seoul is formidable. So, too, in the Peach State: Georgia ponied up $1.3 billion in tax breaks to bring the Koreans its way.
That’s what makes what Kemp and Warnock didn’t say last week striking. Despite the chance to display a statesman’s perspective on Georgia’s impressive international tie, neither addressed our alliance with Seoul and its importance—not only to Koreans but Americans as well. The omission was noteworthy for Kemp, a MAGA man throughout his 2018 campaign. This year he has sidled to the center to appeal to middle-of-the-road voters. That said, Kemp whiffed big time in missing the easy softballs that could have distinguished him from the GOP’s “America First’ers” who love Bryan County’s foreign investment but couldn’t find Korea on the map.
The lack of perspective from both Kemp and Warnock on one of the most important US relationships in Asia, of course, isn’t unique. Like the rest of the country’s 2022 races, in Georgia talk of foreign policy has been missing in action. To be sure, state houses, or for that matter Senate seats, aren’t won or lost over global issues. But for the governor of a state with 11 military bases, and where foreign direct investment accounts for almost one-in-five jobs—not to mention for a US senator who legislates on defense and foreign affairs—a few words from the podium that offered a broader view of the world shouldn’t have been too much to ask.
When it comes to Korea, the peg for their commentary is anything but obscure. The US mutual security treaty with South Korea hits its 70th anniversary next year. Add to that the fact the peninsula is again in the headlines. Kim Chong Un, the reigning scion of the family dynasty that rules North Korea, has launched 30 missile shots so far this year. South Korean intelligence also warns he is prepping a seventh nuclear test. Translating those events into a punchline in the candidates’ remarks wouldn’t have taken much of a speechwriter’s time: for instance, the US alliance with South Korea and the peninsula’s stability matters as the foundation for our economic success.
Why bother with the big picture? For one thing, it’s a viewpoint the Koreans would appreciate. In Georgia and almost certainly elsewhere in 2022, it’s also one most American don’t think much about. South Korea’s postwar rise as a dynamic economy and a democracy could well have taken a different course absent the US role as a security partner with Seoul as well as others in East Asia. No less important, US support for an open trade and financial system created opportunities for South Korea—one of “Asia’s tigers,” along with Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong, whose economies took off spectacularly in the 1980s—to grow and prosper.
For a governor now basking in the Korean conglomerate’s investment glow, it ought to be a message Kemp sends to his Republican faithful. For four years they cheered a president who not only denigrated US policies and the opportunity to build on their dividends but also the alliances that underpin US economic relationships with South Korea and Japan as well. As threats grow from China and Russia, that behavior wasn’t lost on US partners in Europe as well as Asia who now are watching and wondering what kind of backsliding this year’s election as well as 2024 could bring.