Trump donor who criticized offshoring to close Ohio plant and move work to China

Source: The Guardian

Mon 16 Feb 2026 08.00 EST
Last modified on Mon 16 Feb 2026 11.10 EST


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 plan open.

Conn Selmer, the largest US manufacturer of brass and orchestra instruments, told the union it planned to offshore most work at its EastLake, 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.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/feb/16/john-paulson-conn-selmer-ohio-factory-china-trump