Yesterday, President Donald J. Trump announced one of the largest steel plants in American history: a $15 billion Mesabi Metallics mill in Iowa. The project will create 1,750 permanent Iowa jobs, support up to 6,000 construction jobs, and is projected to add $95 billion to the U.S. economy over the next decade.
The mill will produce 7.5 million tons of steel per year in its first phase, rising to about ten million tons, using iron ore from Mesabi Metallics’ newly opened Minnesota mine — the first new iron ore mine in the United States in 50 years.
This is the kind of project Democrats spent years making impossible.
The Obama Administration blocked a proposed northern Minnesota copper-nickel mine by denying its federal lease renewals in 2016. The Biden Administration canceled those same leases in 2022, then banned mining for 20 years across 225,504 acres of the Superior National Forest. It revoked a key federal water permit for another long-stalled copper-nickel mine. It blocked a 211-mile road in Alaska that would’ve opened a major copper and cobalt district. In 2024, it piled new rules onto taconite iron-ore processing and coke ovens — the plants that feed American steel — while tariff loopholes kept foreign steel flowing in.*
President Trump reversed those policies — and American mining is roaring ahead.
- In 2025, the U.S. surpassed Japan in crude steel production for the first time since 1999 and became the world’s third-largest steel producer. In fact, raw steel output is up 9% since President Trump returned to office.
- Nearly 6,000 steelworker jobs have been added after almost 10,000 were lost under the prior Administration.
- American mills now supply 84% of the U.S. finished steel market, up from 77% in 2024.
- Steel imports are falling as tariffs, permitting reforms, and energy dominance bring production home.
- New mill orders hit a record $17.3 billion in July 2026; domestic shipments hit a record $16.9 billion that same month.
- U.S. manufacturing has expanded for eight straight months.
Adding 1,750 new steel industry jobs is huge. Employment in the American steel industry peaked in 1953, at about 650,000 workers, according to data from the American Iron and Steel Institute then fell to roughly 512,000 by 1974, 399,000 by 1980, and has continued declining for decades. By the mid-2010s it was around 140,000, and recent BLS figures for iron and steel mills are in the low-to-mid 80,000s. Through deregulation and tariffs President Trump is turning that decline around.
*This article relies in part on material furnished by the White House press office.
