John Paulson, a hedge fund billionaire and one of Donald Trump’s earliest Wall Street backers, is planning to offshore an Ohio manufacturing plant to China despite heavy pushback from employees.
Workers at the plant call the move “a slap in our face”, after Paulson vocally defended domestic manufacturing, and are fighting to keep the plant open.
Conn Selmer, the largest US manufacturer of brass and orchestra instruments, told the union it planned to offshore most work at its East Lake, Ohio, plant to China by the end of June 2026, eliminating 150 jobs.
United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2359, which represents the 150 employees, said workers were informed of the closing when it first sat down to bargain over their new union contract last month.
“We came in with a full proposal, fully prepared to bargain, and they started off with a presentation of telling us how bad we were doing,” said Robert Hines, president of UAW Local 2359 and an employee at the plant. The company told them there would be no bargaining and the plant would be closing.
Workers say offshoring is an attack on the union, citing rhetoric that the plant has not been productive despite previous praise from company management.
Union workers say Conn Selmer opened a facility in China last year and gradually shifted their workload to that plant, though workers were told the new facility would not affect workload in Ohio.
“Almost immediately they started taking parts from certain product lines,” Hines said. He noted co-workers began complaining about brass metal coming from China that had to be scrapped due to poor quality.
Paulson made a significant portion of his wealth by betting against the housing market that crashed in 2008. A longtime Trump donor, he served on Trump’s economic policy team during his first presidential campaign and raised $50.5m for the president at his Palm Beach home in April 2024. He was in the running to serve as secretary of treasury during Trump’s second term but withdrew because of “complex financial obligations”.
Paulson, like Trump, has publicly criticized offshoring. “We can’t have American producers closing American factories and offshoring. We need to protect American jobs and protect American manufacturing,” he said during an interview with CNBC in September 2024.
Hines said offshoring the brass plant would be deeply offensive to workers after Paulson painted himself as an advocate for domestic manufacturing.
“To go publicly on CNBC to support the Trump administration’s positive views on tariffs and all that stuff, and then you turn around and [say you] want to go send the work right over to China,” Hines said. “It’s a slap in our face.”
But the union intends to keep fighting. Hines noted he hopes Trump steps in to stop the decision. “This decision can still be reversed,” he said.
In early February, the union held a rally in Eastlake, Ohio, as part of efforts to save the plant from closing. It also released a video featuring workers at the plant criticizing the proposal to shut down the plant.
“It really pisses me off,” said one worker in the video. “It leaves a hole in your heart,” said a second. “I feel betrayed,” added another.
“They tell us we are the beating heart of this company,” said a worker in the video.
The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
A spokesperson for Conn Selmer did not comment on the criticisms from the union, though the company confirmed that if the “tentative decision is finalized”, it will transfer some instrument production offshore.
The plant’s closure “will improve our competitiveness and better meet today’s market demands”, the company said. “We remain deeply committed to US manufacturing, as we have been for more than 150 years.”
Workers are especially worried about the impact the plant’s closure will have on the community.
“It’s going to take a lot of money out of East Lake,” Hines said. “We’ve had people come out [and] show love to try to keep the place open, and the company just isn’t open to it. They’re not answering or returning anyone’s calls.”
