Stop the Steel? Iowa approves $1.36 billion for foreign-owned steel plant in swing district less than 2 weeks before early voting

“Stop the Steal” — or rather, steel — has an entirely new meaning for some Iowa voters in 2026.

Protesters at the Iowa statehouse Friday carried signs reading “No Steel Steal!” as lawmakers raced through a one-day special session to award Mesabi Metallics $1.36 billion over ten years in tax incentives for a new steel plant in Lee County. Mesabi Metallics is owned by the Indian conglomorate Essar Group. 

The Iowa House passed it 75-17, the Senate 28-19. Gov. Kim Reynolds signed it into law Friday night.

It comes after President Trump’s Monday announcement that the largest steel plant in U.S. history will be built in Iowa. Mr. Trump promised the $15 billion steel plant would create 1,750 permanent jobs and roughly 6,000 construction jobs. 

The announcement caught many in the state, including lawmakers who would be counted on to approve the tax incentives, by surprise. When Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters at the White House “the deal is done” on Monday, lawmakers in Iowa still hadn’t received details to review or timing for the special session held Friday. 

Opponents of the $1.36 billion in incentives are largely supporters of the project, but they wanted more safeguards and guarantees of public benefits. The incentives roughly amount to about $777,000 in credits per permanent job over 10 years, a hefty price tag by any standards. Proponents argue that math leaves out roughly 6,000 construction jobs — which opponents point out are all temporary.

And a time when many of Iowa’s farmers are struggling, more than a billion-dollars in tax credit for an India-based conglomerate is a hard sell for some. 

Why Iowa?

There are places in the U.S. synonymous with steel, but Iowa has never been one of them. The state has a couple scrap-fed steel mills — a small fraction of the size Mesabi is promising — and no commercial iron ore. Mesabi Metallics is based in Minnesota, and its argument is that Iowa is conveniently downriver on the Mississippi.  

But Iowa has something that Minnesota doesn’t: one of the most tightly contested congressional races in the nation. The state also has tight Senate and governor’s races. 

The plant is proposed for Iowa’s first congressional district, where Republican Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks is defending one of the GOP’s most at-risk seats. In 2024, the recount had her ahead of Democrat Christina Bohannan by just 798 votes. Sabato’s Crystal Ball just moved the race from “toss up” to “leans Democratic” before the steel announcement. 

Bankruptcy and broken promises

Mesabi and Essar Group have a long history of missed deadlines and unfulfilled job promises. In 2008, Essar announced a $1.6 billion iron ore mine and steel plant in Nashwauk, Minnesota, home to some of the country’s richest iron ore deposits. It promised more than 700 permanent jobs. But the steel mill plans were dropped in 2015. Essar Steel Minnesota filed for bankruptcy in 2016, was renamed Mesabi Metallics under new owners, and later came back under Essar’s control.

The India-based Essar has recevied billions of dollars in loans from the Russian state-owned bank VTB, according to local media. CBS News has not independently verified these reports. 

There are also echoes of other regional mega-projects gone awry. No one in the Hawkeye state wants the steel plant to be the 2026 version of Foxconn. In 2017,  President Trump and Foxconn promised a $10 billion plant and create 13,000 jobs in the battleground state of Wisconsin. By 2021, the plan was scaled back to $672 million and 1,454 jobs. Republican Gov. Scott Walker championed the deal — and lost his 2018 reelection bid as public support for it soured.

Tricky politics

On Friday, Republican State Senator Kevin Alons told the Des Moines Register that lawmakers needed more time ahead of Friday’s vote. 

“The political extortion is breathtaking,” he said. 

But in the end, he voted for it. 

State Senator Dave Sires, also a Republican, voted no to the project, complaining the process was rushed. State Senator Dan Dawson, another Republican, called it the “largest corporate giveaway in the state of Iowa’s history.” And Republican State Senator Jeff Taylor raised concerns that the state was already in a real budget crunch. 

Taylor was swapped off the Senate Ways and Means Committee at the last minute to ensure the bill would pass committee. It passed 10-8, with 6 Republican State Senators voting against the bill. 

It’s a careful political calculus for Republicans in the Iowa Senate. They’re trying to thread a fine needle: follow their leaders and bring home jobs, without being seen as rushing more than a billion dollars in taxpayer money to a foreign-owned company with no time for review.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn, who has campaigned against corporate handouts, made a case for supporting the bill. He called the idea of an Iowa steel plant a “once in a lifetime” exception.

Democrats have been navigating tricky political territory as well, trying not to oppose job creation while pushing back on the rush to issue nearly $1.4 billion in tax breaks before early voting starts on Oct. 14. Democratic nominee Rob Sand, currently the state auditor, called the steel plant “a promising idea for Lee County” but wanted to see more details first. 

“You look at these data center deals that this administration has done over the last few years and we gave away the farm,” Sand said. “I want to make sure this is a real opportunity, but also at the end of the day Iowa is getting served by it and not getting fleeced.” 

Iowa Senate Democratic Leader Janice Weiner said she wants good-paying jobs and investments in the state but balked at the rapid timeline that left taxpayers out of the conversation. 

“If we were doing this the right way, we would be waiting until after the election,” she told CBS News on Saturday. “We have a responsibility to our taxpayers to make sure our hard-earned dollars are well spent. If it’s a good deal now, it will be a good deal in January when due diligence has been done.”

Meanwhile, State Representative Dave Jacoby, a Democrat, voted yes, “with the hope that this plan is real,” while still cautioning, “today is not a ribbon cutting.” 

The ribbon cutting, if it comes, is years away. The tax credits don’t kick in until the plant is running, and Mesabi says that won’t be before 2030. Iowans begin to cast their votes in just a few days. So the question on the ballot isn’t whether Iowa gets a steel mill. It’s whether voters believe it will — and if $1.36 billion was the right price to pay for it.