> Are there US workers who should have been hired to do this factory-bootstrapping instead

Yes. Of these companies [0], Hyundai-LG has been the only malcontent

The European and Japanese manufacturers haven't done anything similar - only the Koreans are.

[0] - https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/06/tracking-the-ev-battery-fa...

That link only lists some companies that have built factories (or are trying to), and nothing about how they were built.