It’s been just over five weeks since Conn Selmer — a renowned maker of brass instruments — closed its last unionized factory in the United States, planning to offshore a substantial portion of the plant’s work to China.
The closure, which put about 150 Ohio residents out of work, drew national attention because Conn Selmer’s parent company is owned by billionaire John Paulson’s investment company. Paulson, who is also a prominent supporter of President Donald Trump, spoke out against the offshoring of jobs during the 2024 campaign.
Now the Trump administration is proposing new tariffs on imported instruments like those made at the now-shuttered Conn Selmer factory — a measure that is coming too late to save the jobs of the men and women who worked there, some for more than 40 years.
This week the Commerce Department proposed that a 25 percent tariff be applied to “brass-wind musical instruments,” along with other tariffs of various rates applied to 13 other goods considered derivatives of aluminum, steel and copper. The administration is seeking to justify the tariffs as necessary for national security, a basis which Trump has interpreted liberally in the past.
The tariff proposal was announced three days after The Post published a lengthy story about the final shift at the Conn Selmer factory in Eastlake, a small city northeast of Cleveland. For decades the plant made tubas, sousaphones, French horns and other instruments.
Many Conn Selmer workers, including some who voted for Trump in 2024, expressed disillusionment with the federal government for failing to stop the offshoring of their jobs.
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