Asia's US Investment Pledges Hinge on Leadership — SkimNews
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- Japan committed to as much as $550 billion of U.S. investment and South Korea to $350 billion, with both pledges tied to a 15% U.S. tariff cap; by autumn, Japan had identified projects worth up to $109 billion while Seoul was still choosing its first investment locations.
- TSMC pushed back production at its first U.S. factory in Arizona in 2023, attributing the delay to a shortage of workers with the right specialist skills.
- LG Energy Solution said many of the 475 people detained by U.S. immigration officials at the Hyundai-LG facility in Georgia in September 2025 were on business trips; more than 300 of the detainees were South Korean nationals, highlighting firms' reliance on parent-company experts.
- Olivier Safir said that after more than 20 years recruiting senior management for overseas companies in the U.S., he had seen far more projects stall over leadership than financing.
- Asian firms should appoint their U.S. leader a year or more before opening and pair an empowered U.S. CEO with a senior headquarters manager who can translate between headquarters and the local market.
- U.S. country heads need performance-linked pay, authority to decide locally and a direct link to a parent-company executive able to act in a week rather than a quarter; weak reporting lines lead managers to leave earlier and force a restart with diminished credibility.
Why it matters: Investors are already asking whether the new U.S. factories will be built on schedule and operated profitably. For Japan’s $550 billion and South Korea’s $350 billion pledges, the immediate execution test is leadership: an empowered U.S. executive hired about a year before opening and able to make headquarters-level decisions within a week.
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