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President Trump Announces Mesabi Metallics' Iowa Steel Plant, Sep. 28, 2026

September 28, 2026 · The White House · 0:43:20

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump announced that Mesabi Metallics will build “the largest steel plant in American history” in Iowa, producing 10 million tons of steel per year from iron ore mined at the company’s Minnesota mine — which he described as the first new iron ore mine in the United States in more than 50 years. “This steel will be mined, melted, and made right here in the USA,” he said. He put the project’s expected footprint at up to 6,000 construction jobs, nearly 2,000 manufacturing and mining jobs, and $95 billion added to the U.S. economy over ten years.

The President credited his 50% tariffs on foreign steel for the industry’s revival, saying the United States has surpassed Japan in steel production for the first time in 26 years. He was joined by Mesabi’s leadership, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Export-Import Bank Chairman John Jovanovic, Senator Joni Ernst, and Governor Kim Reynolds.

Why it matters

The plant is the administration’s tariff argument in a single project: a full domestic supply chain — mine to mill — announced as direct evidence for the trade policy run by Secretary Lutnick at Commerce, with Secretary Wright’s Energy portfolio behind the mining and power side. It is the kind of named, dated investment the Economy hub’s scoreboard exists to verify.

Scoreboard watch

This is a candidate item for the weekly scoreboard: a named plant with stated capacity and jobs figures. What the scoreboard will check as the record develops is permitting, construction, and hiring against the 10-million-ton and jobs figures announced at the podium.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Makes an Announcement, Sep. 28, 2026” (official upload, embedded above). Remarks as delivered at the event. A White House clip of the announcement (jqm8vgxgqMc) is recorded as an alternate source of this page.