The Mesabi Steel Plant: Trump’s Tariffs in Action

American Thinker ^ | 9/30/2026 | John F. Di Leo

[rlmorel]

(Artist's concept of the new Mesabi Metallics steel plant to be built in Minnesota)

Monday’s news cycle brought an exciting story for both the manufacturing industry and America’s heartland: Mesabi Metallics has announced a new $15-billion steel mill to be built in Iowa, along the Mississippi River. With an expectation of being up and running by 2030, the mill will be the largest ever in the United States, being budgeted to reach approximately 10 percent of current American steel production within a couple years of startup. The statistics shared at the announcement anticipate five or six thousand construction jobs for its construction in Iowa; about 1,750 permanent employees at the plant; and a related influx of jobs and activity at the firm’s iron mines in northeast Minnesota, which will supply the lion’s share of raw materials for this state-of-the-art facility.

[rlmorel]

As the article states, everyone seems to focus on the revenue stream from tariffs we have imposed on countries that have an asymmetrical tariff state that put American industry at a disadvantage. The hollowing out of the American industrial base has continued apace and with little deceleration for more than five decades as a result of many of these protectionist tariffs and trade restrictions on American-made products, and so much of the American industrial base has left the USA for cheaper labor overseas.

We have reached the point where we cannot manufacture key products like ships, pharmaceuticals, transformers, and many electrical components just to give a few examples. Not only are these things necessary for our industrial base, but the inability to produce these at scale is a major national security issue.

One of the key components of President Trump's Tariff policy is the re-shoring of industry. According to the White House and the Department of Commerce, we have at this time pledges of $9.5 Trillion dollars of investment to build factories, shipyards, and various industrial plants across this country to produce American made good, to provide jobs to build the infrastructure and begin rebuilding American Industry which will provide jobs for millions of Americans.

This plant is just one example. Another example is the Hitachi plant being built in Virginia. We have to import around 80% of our larger power transformers (critical for the bulk power grid/transmission) for our electrical grid from...Mexico, South Korea, Brazil, Canada, and even Europe. We are in the process of building new plants for this key infrastructure as we gear up for beefing up the electrical grid.

This is all due to the Trump Tariffs and Republicans who have supported him on this effort, against many in and out of his party, and the Media in general.

I see people on this very forum who want to continue onward using the playbook that has been used for the last 80 years, and which has led us to being $40 Trillion in Debt, with the debt increasing by over $1 Trillion every 90 days, and almost $1 Trillion a year being spent annually just to service the interest on our debt.

What is so hard to understand about the fact that we are broke, we are$4 Trillion in Debt, with the debt increasing by $1 Trillion every 90 days, and over $1 Trillion being spent annually just to service the interest on our debt, and that this situation is not sustainable?

All those precious, hard earned dollars in our investments are going to evaporate if we do not bring industry back into our country, establish fair trade, and address our enormous government bloat which not only hamstrings our economy with the salaries of unneeded workers who have long supported government as a jobs program, the regulations imposed by such a large parasitic entity are choking our ability to maintain an industrial base.

And saying that if we don't address that will result in ALL of our investments going belly up (and, our nation, and us with it) is not hyperbole.

I challenge anyone to argue that being $4 Trillion in Debt, with the debt increasing by $1 Trillion every 90 days, and over $1 Trillion being spent annually just to service the interest on our debt will NOT destroy this nation, our savings, and us with it.

To Americans out there, answer this: Do you want to preserve your current savings at the cost of losing this nation where you will lose those savings anyway, or are you going to support Trump and his efforts to begin to slow our headlong rush towards national oblivion?

Anyone who thinks saving this nation is going to be easy and painless does not understand the hole we are in, and how time and compound interest are conspiring to bear down on us to put an end to this nation we love.

To state this baldly is not hyperbole or hysteria. We need to make a stand, and we have run out of time to bicker.

This new $15 Billion dollar state of the art, the largest steel plant in American history is the fruit that the tariffs are going to begin to bear.

We need to keep this in mind when discussing this with people who don't want to vote for candidates that will support President Trump and his agenda.

[steve8714]

Awaiting the flood of lawsuits by Democrat-aligned activists.
Also, why are foreign countries investing here while American corporations continue to seek the Chinese slave labor?

[Repeal The 17th]

Are there no editors/proofreaders anymore?

“(Artist’s concept of the new Mesabi Metallics steel plant
to be built in Minnesota)”
-
“a new $15-billion steel mill to be built in Iowa,
along the Mississippi River”

[21twelve]

Obviously some confusion as the Mesabi Range (and the mines) are in Minnesota, while the plant is in Iowa. Plus - it is all fly over country.

I guess Iowa offered them a better deal than Minnesota did. Although I guess whether it is the raw materials or finished steel, it all needs to get shipped off somewhere. Although I would think it easier to ship 10,000 pounds of steel than the 100,000 pounds of ore.

[21twelve]

Okay, I looked it up. Surprisingly to me it doesn’t take much ore to make the steel. 13 pounds of ore to make 10 pounds of steel!:

AI Overview
You need about 13 pounds of iron ore to make 10 pounds of steel.
Michigan State University
Steel Production Details

The Ratio: Modern industrial steelmaking typically requires roughly 1.3 pounds of iron ore for every 1 pound of finished steel or pig iron produced.
Michigan State University
Other Ingredients: Alongside iron ore, making a batch of steel requires additional materials like coke (about 0.5 pounds per pound of steel) and limestone or flux (a few hundred pounds per ton) to strip away impurities.
Michigan State University
Scrap Metal: Modern steel mills also mix in recycled scrap steel, which changes the exact raw ore ratio depending on the specific recycling rate at the plant.

[SuperLuminal]

Hoping that this plant will hire ONLY verified United States citizens...

Not sure how many of those remain in Minesotadishu...

[Nateman]

What worries me is the money for this is coming from India. That means this plant could be an excuse to import a bunch of workers from India. They are very clannish resulting in the loss of jobs for American computer programmers as they were replaced by workers from India.

Call me racist but I don't want to import people from low trust countries like India. With a Civilization over a thousand years old and the British trying to upgrade their society for centuries they still are not a place worth imitation.

[rlmorel]

That error is mine, the "Artist's Conception" under the image. Sorry about that. I am the editor and proofreader...I was just doing too many things at once...trying to print some 3D objects for a sandwich board I am wearing at a Festival this weekend...so I can carry a candidate sign on the front of me, and this on the back of me:

[21twelve]

Your goof reminded me of the story where the county surveyor knocked on the door of the Iowa farm house to inform the widow that the survey just found out an error, and that her house was actually in Minnesota.

She didn’t see how that could be and asked them to double check it.

They came back the following week to survey, and when they were done went back to the farm house to inform her that they did mess up, and that her home was indeed in Iowa.

“Oh thank heavens! I don’t know if I could survive a Minnesota winter!”

[Socon-Econ]

Great for the plant’s owners and employees. Not so great for steel consumers.

[DownInFlames]

Democrats will halt this in 2029.

[rlmorel]

Great for national security. Great for GDP. Great for people building the plant. Four years of construction. Billions of dollars invested in American infrastructure on our soil. Great for building a workforce of steelworkers. Great for a shorter supply line of ore for smelting and steel consumers.

Just curious, why it is bad for steel consumers?

Is it because we cannot get steel from cheap labor overseas on a critical national defense industry, and up until we had Trump put tariffs on Communist Chinese steel, probably done with slave labor, which to get around tariffs, are trying to dump into Canada so GM cars can be built more cheaply by Canadian workers with steel priced to depress the market for non-Chinese steel and make it non-competitive.

It is part of why we are having a dust up with Canada right now. The Trump administration sees what the ChiComs are doing in the open as they give us the finger.

[rlmorel]

One would hope that is a given. Apparently, the company has the mine in Minnesota (which is by accounts a large reserve of ore) it would be interesting to see how that is staffed.

This should be done anyway, right? We should make the process of hiring ANY person for ANY job begin with checking the applicant’s name against the same database we have in place to verify that someone is a citizen before they are registered to vote...that the Courts have not yet allowed the administration to require.

You are correct to make that observation.

[rlmorel]

This is not importing people from India. Presumably, if they did come over, they would have to obtain a visa to do so. And if it is a working visa, while the $100K fee is being fought, they are not just rubber stamping them in this administration.

We shall see.

[rlmorel]

Tariffs on the ChiComs are intended to combat the use of cheap Chinese slave labor. I am sure they are still using them, but the tariffs make them less competitive...hopefully, non-competitive.

The problem is, which again tariffs were installed to solve, is to have industry that can produce products in this country so we have a choice between cheap slave labor in Communist China and an American made product.

Tariffs are meant to prod investment domestically and overseas.

I think the answer to your question is: Americans don’t want to invest in an American industrial endeavor, if it is fated to go out of business because the ChiComs flood our market with cheaper, slave-built or just cheap labor-built products that we cannot defend against, and that American investment will fail.

And, I don’t fault them for not investing...yet.

Tariffs are still being fought tooth-and-nail by Democrats to thwart any regeneration of industry or credit going to the Trump Administration, and Democrats and Republicans who want cheap labor.

We have to go down this road. Being $40 Trillion dollars in debt, we cannot get out of it by simply cutting spending and increasing tax revenues. That will never happen.

We MUST grow out of it. Increase the American industrial base. The Wealth of The Nation concept. Implement AI to make the American worker, already near the top across the board (if not at the top) even more efficient. Raise our GDP to 5-10% year over year improvement. Larger GDP. More workers getting money, buying things, and paying taxes to increase that revenue.

That is how we are going to get out of it. It may not be perfect in all respects, as the tariffs have not fully gained traction and it is going to take time for investments to catch up. This steel plant in question is a prime example. It won’t be finished until 2030.

But we damn well have to start sometime. The first rule of digging holes is to know when to stop digging. Trump seems to understand this fully. We need to stop digging our national grave, and begin finding ways to climb out.

If anyone else in recent American history has ANY plan on how to do this, I am unaware of it.

[rlmorel]

DownInFlames, if you want to roll over and curl up in a ball, that is your choice. We can still fight back. We can still bring this country back.

But if you want to not vote, your personage is going to live up to your FR handle.

My advice is to vote. If you do love this country and still want to give up, my advice it to just stay out of the way and don’t try to bring people down with you.

Let other people save it and don’t get in the way.