Catherwood LibraryILR School

When the aging state-owned Weifang East Steel Pipe factory in China?s northern coastal plains fell into insolvency a few years ago, unpaid workers at first responded by blocking the factory gates and marching angrily on a nearby municipal building. Then, inspired by the spirit of capitalism consuming modern China, more than 50 employees borrowed from banks against their homes to buy the company, install new equipment and produce higher quality steel pipe, much of it for export. The newly privatized factory soon was proudly humming again. But today it is in a new crisis, and this time the workers? anger is aimed at the United States, which is set to impose punishing new tariffs on Chinese steel pipe imports early next year, at the behest of struggling American steel makers.