A steelworker who spent decades at an Illinois mill is calling President Donald Trump's announcement of a $15 billion steel plant in Iowa "political pandering," as doubts grow over whether the project will ever be built in a red state that's leaning away from Republicans.
The administration says India-based Mesabi Metallics will build the nation's largest steel plant in Lee County, Iowa – a project that was originally slated for Democratic-leaning Minnesota – but veteran steelworker Doug May, who worked 43 years at a mill in Granite City, Illinois, told The Guardian that the timing gives the game away.
"He pulled the same thing in 2018, just before an election, when he announced that $10 billion Foxconn project," May said.
Trump called the Foxconn site in Wisconsin "the Eighth Wonder of the World" and boasted that it would employ "much more than 13,000" workers, but it has around 1,100 today.
May also accused Trump of taking credit for an industry that steelworkers spent decades fighting to save, including by filing more than 150 trade cases against unfair foreign competition. "Arguably, we played a very important role in saving domestic steel," May said.
Trump has claimed "they've already started building" the Iowa plant, but local NBC affiliate KWQC-TV reviewed county records and found no major property purchases tied to the project this year, no permits before county supervisors and no plans shared with county officials. No site has been disclosed, and steel production isn't slated to start until 2030.
The developer's track record doesn't help. Its India-based parent company, Essar Global, proposed a Minnesota plant in 2007, but its subsidiary in that state went bankrupt in 2016, and the state revoked the company's mining leases in 2021 after it missed a deadline. That same Minnesota mine is supposed to supply the Iowa plant.
Former Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton said he had "a very bad experience" with the company.
"I'm skeptical of the announcement in Iowa this close to the election," Dayton said. "I'd like to see that money on the table from Essar before they start to bring a shovel."
Iowa taxpayers are on the hook anyway. In a special session called by Gov. Kim Reynolds, lawmakers approved $1.36 billion in tax incentives over 10 years. The state has run more than $1 billion in deficits over the past two years.
The project also has ties inside the White House. Senior communications strategist Jason Miller's firm was paid at least $240,000 by Mesabi Metallics. When the watchdog group Public Citizen raised conflict-of-interest concerns, Miller lashed out.
"Public Citizen is a bunch of America-hating fake news soy boy losers who prefer new investments go to China and not the U.S., and respectfully, they can get rekt," Miller said. He added that he had deregistered as a lobbyist for the company and recused himself from the announcement.
White House spokesman Kush Desai insisted that "no president has done more to revive American steelmaking than President Trump," crediting Trump's 50 percent steel tariffs.
Mesabi Metallics did not respond to requests for comment.
