South Korean conglomerate Hyundai announced on Monday that it would be investing roughly $21 billion in U.S. domestic manufacturing. This includes a $5.8 billion steel plant in Louisiana, which is set to hire more than 1,400 employees and will produce next-generation steel that will be used by Hyundai’s two U.S. auto plants to manufacture electric vehicles.
A thumping $9 billion would be used to expand production of cars under Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis brands in the U.S., while the rest of the money would be used for expanding renewable energy supplies, building more electric vehicle (EV) chargers, and research on robots and autonomous driving, according to the New York Times.
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The investment was announced at the White House by President Donald Trump, Hyundai Chairman Euisun Chung, and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry. This comes at a time when international conglomerates are trying hard to avoid tariffs and prevent a trade war ahead of Trump’s April 2 tariff deadline.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Japan’s SoftBank are among the major foreign players that have visited the White House in the last two months to announce big U.S. onshoring plans. Contract-manufacturer Foxconn also previously said it’s considering increasing U.S. production to minimize the impact of Trump’s tariffs.
Hyundai Motor CEO José Muñoz told Axios that “the best way to navigate tariffs is to increase localization.”
Hyundai — which is a top seller of electric vehicles in the U.S., and a direct competitor of Tesla — already has two major automotive plants in the country. One of them is in Alabama, and the other in Georgia. On Monday, the company also announced the development of a third plant, also in Georgia.
South Korea is one of the countries with which the U.S. carries a trade deficit. In March, Trump singled out South Korea for applying high tariffs to U.S. exports, saying the Asian ally’s tariffs were four times higher than those of the United States. Seoul has disputed this imbalance.