Most recently, the Trump administration announced plans to construct the largest steel plant in the US, a $15bn plant in Lee county, Iowa to be built by India-based Mesabi Metallics. But the project and claims surrounding it have incited skepticism over whether the plant will be built and delivered as promised, given Trump’s record and the financial history of Mesabi Metallics’ parent company, Essar Global. The plant had originally been scheduled to be built in Minnesota, a state that usually votes for Democrats.
The shift to Iowa – where Republicans are struggling in the midterms – has also attracted attention. Doug May, who worked for 43 years as a steelworker at a mill in Granite City, Illinois, characterized the announcement as “political pandering” given the timing and how tariffs are hurting Iowa farmers. That project, in swing state Wisconsin, failed to produce the jobs Trump and Foxconn had promised.
May argued Trump is using the steel industry as a campaign strategy, while ignoring the work the United Steel Workers have done to push to save the steel industry, including filing over 150 trade cases over the past decades to combat unfair trade practices that harm US workers. Over 40 domestic steel producers in the US filed for bankruptcy in the late 1990s. By 2016, Essar Steel Minnesota had filed for bankruptcy, following construction delays and financing issues at its Nashwauk, Minnesota project, where its iron ore mine, which is supposed to fuel the Iowa steel plant, is located.
In efforts to get rid of its debt, Essar Global sold off assets, including the completion of a sale of Essar Oil for $12.9bn to a Russia-controlled energy company. Mesabi Metallics briefly changed ownership to Virginia billionaire Thomas Clarke, before he lost control of the company in 2018, with Essar Global regaining control , but then losing its mining leases in 2021 when the state of Minnesota revoked them after a missed deadline. Dayton said it did look like the plant was “actually proceeding, which is great if they’re going to actually complete building this plant”.
But he added: “I’m skeptical of the announcement in Iowa this close to the election. That’s going to require $15bn dollars of investment. I’d like to see that money on the table from Essar before they start to bring a shovel.” Some, including May, see echoes of Trump’s Foxconn announcement in June 2018.
Ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, Trump described plans by the Taiwanese electronics contract manufacturer to open a gargantuan site outside Milwaukee as “the Eighth Wonder of the World” and said the plant “will provide jobs for much more than 13,000 Wisconsin workers”. Trump’s promises came as his approval ratings with the public were low, with Democrats poised to take advantage and regain control of the House. The site currently has around 1,100 employees and became an albatross around the necks of its backers as Foxconn’s ambitious plans failed to materialise.
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