President Donald Trump unveiled plans Monday(9/28/26) for a large new steel operation that Mesabi Metallics intends to build in Iowa. The project carries an expected investment of about $15 billion and, according to Trump, would become the biggest steel-making facility in the country.
Steel is not expected to come out of the plant for several years. The company is working toward a 2030 startup, with the operation growing in stages after that rather than opening at its eventual size.
The first stage would have enough capacity to make roughly 7.5 million tons in a year. Plans call for yearly output to eventually grow by about one-third from that level as the rest of the facility is developed.
Iowa is only one part of the company’s plan. Mesabi Metallics also has a mining operation in Minnesota that is expected to provide the raw material needed at the new plant, connecting the two locations through the production process.
More than $2.5 billion has gone into the Minnesota operation. Once it reaches its intended capacity, the amount of ore coming out of the mine each year is expected to be similar to the initial yearly steel capacity planned for Iowa. The material would then be transported to the new facility for use in making steel.
The mine took a long route to reach this point. An earlier attempt to develop the Minnesota project began about 20 years ago and eventually ran into financial problems. Essar Steel Minnesota entered bankruptcy proceedings in 2016, years before the current operation reached the beginning of production.
Mesabi Metallics is connected to Essar Group, a multinational conglomerate based in India. Company officials now envision the Minnesota and Iowa sites working together, taking the process from obtaining the ore through making the steel without moving those stages outside the United States.
The Iowa construction effort itself could employ several thousand people. The White House estimates the number could reach 6,000 while the facility is being built. Once regular operations take over, the workforce is expected to settle at no fewer than 1,750 permanent employees.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said during Monday’s White House event that arrangements for the project had already been completed. His comments followed questions about whether anything still needed to be settled before the development could proceed.
The announcement also comes as the Trump administration continues its effort to encourage steel production inside the country. During Trump’s second term, the government put a 25% duty on imported steel and aluminum before later raising the rate to 50%.
Some organizations representing the steel industry want those trade measures to remain. They have connected the policy with $47 billion in investment that is either planned or already underway. Critics take a different view and say the tariffs have contributed to higher domestic steel prices.
The Minnesota operation provides an example of how much can happen between the announcement of a large industrial project and actual production. For the Iowa facility, the current schedule leaves several more years of development before steel making is expected to begin in 2030.
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