Trump's 'economic revival' falls flat as donor's factory closes up shop

Donald Trump as he makes a campaign stop at manufacturer FALK Production in Walker, Michigan, U.S. September 27, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo

President Donald Trump's promises of an "economic revival" and a return of manufacturing have once again fallen flat, with a new Washington Post piece documenting the closure of a factory in "Trump country" owned by a prominent Trump donor.

Per the Saturday morning piece, the Conn Selmer plant in Eastlake, Ohio, just east of Cleveland, shut its doors for the last time at the end of June. Located within a 61-year-old building, the plant was a subsidiary of the Steinway Musical Instruments company until its acquisition in 2013

"At a time when the president of the United States said the country was in the midst of a manufacturing renaissance, the 150 people who still worked at the plant were losing their jobs, and seeing many of them offshored to China," the report detailed.

The plant was one of the many holdings in the portfolio of John Paulsen, a billionaire hedge-fund owner whose firm acquired Steinway over a decade ago, and who emerged as a vocal backer of Trump during his 2024 campaign. He was also notably supportive of Trump's tariff plans, claiming that they could "protect American jobs and protect American manufacturing.

"What you see is a hollowed-out American manufacturing base. And we need to protect American jobs and protect American manufacturing,” Paulson said during a CNBC appearance in September 2024. “We can’t have Americans — American producers closing American factories and offshoring.”

This manufacturing "renaissance" under Trump has, so far, failed to materialize, with recent data showing that the sector has, in fact, lost around 75,000 jobs during his second term. Tariffs have borne the brunt of the blame for this, as their haphazard and disastrous implementation has done far more to harm the economy than to bring jobs back from overseas.

As the Post's report highlighted, Trump has long claimed to be able to prevent the closure of factories in the U.S., with little in the way of results to prove it.

“All of those bad things that you had to suffer with, you’re not suffering anymore, because now people and companies have an incentive to stay,” Trump told workers at an appliance factory back in 2020. “They’re not going to be leaving so fast. I want to make sure these companies aren’t leaving.”

“Together we will reclaim our nation’s destiny as the number one manufacturing superpower in the world," Trump said during his reelection campaign in August 2024. “We will do it, and China won’t even be close. Nobody will be.”

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