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Transcript: President Trump Remarks on $15 Billion Steel Plant in Iowa

EDITOR’S NOTE: President Donald Trump hosted executives from Mesabi Metallics, a subsidiary of India’s Essar Group, at the White House on Sept. 28, 2026, to announce plans for what is billed as the largest steel plant in American history, to be built in Iowa. Cabinet members, Iowa officials and company leaders spoke about the investment, and Trump then took questions from reporters on topics including Iran, Canada, China and the midterm elections.

TRANSCRIPT:

Trump Announces Largest Steel Plant in American History in Iowa

DONALD TRUMP: Well, thank you very much. It’s great to be with you. We’ve had some big things happen over the last couple of days, and we’ll talk about it. But before I do that, I want to talk about something extremely important. I’m delighted welcome to the White House the founder and chairman of the Essar Group, Ravi Ruia, as well as the chairman, Rewant Ruia, and president and CEO, Joe Broking, to share some of the really exciting news.

We have some unbelievable news. And there’s a company known as Mesabi, which is one of the biggest in the world. It’s a great company, and they’re going to make a big investment in a place called Iowa. I Iowa every time. Today, we’re thrilled to announce that Mesabi Metallics will be building the largest steel plant in American history in the great state of Iowa.

It’s the largest plant, one of the largest plants in the world, but it’s the largest plant in America by far. We’re also pleased to be joined by Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Senator Joni Ernst has done a wonderful job, and I’m going to miss you. Joni, I can’t believe you’ll be here. But you are. Right?

Are you? Are you sure you’re change your name?

JONI ERNST: Thank you, Mr. President.

DONALD TRUMP: Governor Kim Reynolds, Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Ashley Hinson. And I saw some good polls just recently. You’re doing well, Ashley. You should do well. Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, who’s been with me right from the beginning, and Export-Import Bank Chairman John Jovanovic, who is a fantastic young man, actually.

Plant to Produce 10 Million Tons of Steel a Year

Once completed, Mesabi Metallics’ new steel plant will produce 10 million tons of steel per year using iron ore from the company’s Minnesota mine. And Minnesota has, I will tell you, they maybe have a lousy governor, but they have great iron ore. They have one of the worst governors in history, a real stupid guy, but they do have good iron ore, which is more important, I guess. But it’s the first new iron ore mine in the United States in more than 50 years with the highest quality ore. In other words, this deal will be mined, melted, and made right here in the USA, which is something very unusual.

The project is expected to create up to 6,000 new construction jobs, nearly 2,000 manufacturing or mining jobs, and add another $95 billion to the U.S. economy, which is the number one economy in the world by far. We have the best economy we’ve ever had. We’re building $21 trillion worth of plants and other, now I think we can add this to it. I’m not even including this, but this is a tremendous investment. And it’s going to be over the next 10 years using advanced steel making technology.

The plant will produce some of the highest quality, most affordable steel anywhere in the world. They’re going to be making it here and using it here and also shipping it outside and do very well. This announcement is only possible because of the pro-American policies of the Trump administration. Under Sleepy Joe Biden, have you heard of him? Steel production declined significantly, and nearly 200,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in the year before I took office, and they were leaving.

Trump Credits 50% Steel Tariffs

They were losing these jobs at record numbers. But soon after my inauguration, I imposed powerful 50% tariffs on all foreign steel, and now our steel industry is roaring back to life. Everyone’s building their plant here because they don’t want to pay tariffs. It’s really not that complicated. A lot of people say they don’t understand it, but they do.

They just don’t like to give us credit. Because of tariffs, we are taking in hundreds of billions of dollars of profits. It’s one of the reasons I can offer, if Republicans win the House and the Senate, $5,000 to every adult, and we can do it and the Democrats can’t because the Democrats don’t have any income and they’re going to drive us into a depression. They won’t have any money. But we have the exact opposite.

We’ve reduced imports of our steel by millions of tons. And for the first time in 26 years, the United States has surpassed Japan in steel production. Think of it. We have surpassed Japan. They’re very good at what they do too.

We currently have $47 billion in projects announced or underway in the steel sector alone. More than 4 million tons of new crude steelmaking capacity is expected to become operational in less than two years substantially. We’ve created nearly 60,000 new manufacturing jobs this year alone, many of them in the steel industry. And today, we’re adding even more, the largest American steel plant of all time. So two years ago, our country was dead, and now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world, that is not even close.

Ravi, Rewant, and Joe, I want to thank you very much for this tremendous investment. I’d like to now invite the chairman, Jovanovic, to say a few words followed by Secretary Lutnick, Secretary Wright, the team from Mesabi. I really want to hear from them. Perhaps I want to hear from them first. If that’s all right, we’ll let them go first.

It’s my friend.