Iowa steel plant builder is Indian-owned and files H-1B visas, as Greene said

Reviewing: a viral graphic pairing a Trump quote on a Mesabi Metallics steel plant in Iowa with a Sept. 29, 2026, X post by former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene · 18 sources

Verdicts

• Mostly TrueTrump said: “I’m announcing the largest steel plant in American history to be built by Mesabi Metallics in Iowa.”Not his words. The wording matches a Fox News headline. Trump said “Mesabi Metallics will be building the largest steel plant in American history in the great state of Iowa,” so the substance is accurate.
• TrueMarjorie Taylor Greene posted: “Trump brags about bringing in a steel company and come to find out it’s from India and already uses H1B visas to import workers. MAGA is so America Last it’s almost comical at this point.”Verbatim from her X account, @FmrRepMTG. The graphic drops her next lines about Mamdani and Xi and does not note that she is a former member of Congress.
• TrueThe steel company is from India.Mesabi Metallics is based in Minnesota but wholly owned by the Essar Group, which Ravi and Shashi Ruia founded in India. Essar family members sat beside Trump at the announcement.
• TrueMesabi Metallics already uses H-1B visas to bring in workers.Labor Department disclosure data lists 42 certified H-1B labor applications from April 2025 to June 2026, mostly engineering and management roles in Nashwauk, Minnesota. An aggregator of USCIS data counts 20 approved petitions over fiscal 2025 and 2026.
• Mostly TrueMesabi Metallics will build the largest steel plant in American history.At a planned 10 million tons a year, it would exceed Gary Works (7.5 million) and Sparrows Point’s 1950s peak (8.2 million). But it is a plan: its first phase only matches Gary, it opens in 2030 at the earliest, and the White House’s own release says “one of the largest.”
• MisleadingImplied: Trump brought a new foreign company into the United States.Essar started its Minnesota iron project in 2008, went bankrupt in 2016, and regained control in 2019. The Iowa plant expands a company that has operated in the U.S. for 18 years.
• UnprovenImplied: the Iowa plant’s 1,750 jobs will go to imported H-1B workers.The filings so far are for a few dozen professional roles in Minnesota and Kentucky, none in Iowa. The jobs do not exist yet, and nothing in the record shows how they will be filled.
• UnprovenImplied: the plant is a done deal.Mesabi has not named a site beyond southeast Iowa’s Lee County. Iowa lawmakers may need a special session for tax breaks, and Essar’s Minnesota mine is still unfinished 18 years after work began.

The graphic

Did they say it

Trump

Trump announced the project in the Oval Office on Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. CBS News quotes him: “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.”^[2] Sinclair’s national desk adds a follow-up: “It’s the largest plant, one of the largest plants in the world, but it’s the largest plant in America by far.”^[3]

The graphic’s version, “to be built by Mesabi Metallics in Iowa,” is the wording of a Fox News “BREAKING” post, issued ahead of the announcement, that Bannon’s War Room COO Grace Chong quoted.^[18] It is a fair paraphrase, but quotation marks around a headline are not quotation marks around a speaker.

Greene

The post is on Greene’s X account, @FmrRepMTG, word for word, followed by “Oh but we have to stop the communists Democrats!! Meanwhile Trump ❤️’s Mamdani and Xi!!”^[1] Raw Story dated it to Tuesday, Sept. 29, and identified her as a former representative.^[8] Her claims echo Chong’s earlier post: “Mesabi Metallics is owned by an India based company and is already an H1B sponsor.”^[18]

Who owns Mesabi

Every outlet that covered the announcement identifies the owner the same way. CBS: “Mesabi Metallics is owned by India-based Essar Group.”^[2] CNBC: “Mesabi is part of the Essar Group, an Indian conglomerate.”^[5] Raw Story calls it a “wholly owned subsidiary.”^[8] Mesabi Chairman Rewant Ruia and board member Prashant Ruia, also a director of Essar Capital, were in the Oval Office.^[17] Essar founder Ravi Ruia said there: “My brother Shashi and I founded Essar many decades ago. ... We have built world-class steel plants, oil refineries, ports, power plants and various other assets in India and overseas.”^[3]

The company itself is not new to America. CBS traces it to 2008, when Essar Steel Minnesota began work on an iron mine and processing plant at Nashwauk. That venture went bankrupt in 2016 and was bought by Chippewa Capital Partners. Essar “regained control starting in 2019.”^[2] Mesabi says the Iowa mill will run on pellets from that Minnesota mine.^[13]

The H-1B filings

To hire an H-1B worker, an employer first files a Labor Condition Application with the Labor Department, then a petition with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. An application is not a hire; it shows a company sought approval for a position.

A search of Labor Department disclosure data for “Mesabi Metallics Company LLC” returns 42 certified applications, submitted from April 2025 through June 2026.^[9]

H1BTrack, which compiles USCIS’s Employer Data Hub, counts 9 approved new petitions in fiscal 2025 and 11 in fiscal 2026, with no denials.^[10] Both sites are third-party compilations of federal data; this check could not query the federal tools directly, but the two agree on the 42 applications.

For scale, MPR reported that Mesabi “has hired more than 200 workers so far, out of a planned 350 full-time employees at the mine.”^[11] Applications and hires are different counts, so the two numbers cannot be divided into a share of the workforce. They do show that H-1B workers are a real, small part of the company’s current staffing, concentrated in engineering and management.

Greene’s “already uses H1B visas to import workers” is supported.

Largest in American history?

Compared against: U.S. Steel’s Gary Works, the largest integrated mill in North America, and Bethlehem Steel’s Sparrows Point in its 1950s peak, when it was the largest steel plant in the world.^[16] Unit: annual raw steel capacity, in short tons.

At full build, Mesabi’s 10 million tons would be 33% above Gary Works and 22% above Sparrows Point’s peak. Its first phase, 7.5 million tons, would only match Gary.^[5] Other descriptions vary: CBS reported “7.5 million or more tons,” and Business Today used metric tonnes.^[2][7] This check found no U.S. plant documented above 8.2 million tons, but it did not find Gary’s historical peak capacity, which could narrow the margin.

The ranking comes from the White House and the company. The White House’s own written release is more careful than the president, calling it “one of the largest steel plants in American history.”^[4] And the claim describes a plant that does not exist. A White House official also told CBS it would be “the first mega steel plant built in the U.S. since the 1960s.”^[2]

What the graphic implies

Implied: Trump brought in a foreign company. “Bringing in a steel company” suggests a newcomer. Essar has been working on Minnesota’s Iron Range since 2008.^[2] What is new is the Iowa mill, and the decision to build it there rather than in Minnesota, which KAXE linked to tax incentives: the Des Moines Register reported Iowa lawmakers were told to expect a special session on tax breaks for the company.^[12] Rated Misleading.

Implied: the Iowa jobs will go to H-1B workers. Chong asked, “how many of the 1,750 jobs at its new Iowa steel plant will actually go to American workers?”^[18] Nothing in the record answers that yet. Mesabi says the Iowa jobs will include “skilled engineering, technology and steelmaking roles.”^[13] The H-1B program is capped nationally and requires a labor application for each position, so a large share of 1,750 jobs going to H-1B holders would show up in the same public data. Rated Unproven.

Implied: the plant is certain. Essar’s Minnesota project ran through “years of delays, missed deadlines and financial challenges,” and the state moved to bar Essar from doing business there in 2019.^[2] MPR reported that Mesabi would need to regain control of state mineral leases awarded to rival Cleveland-Cliffs in 2023.^[11] Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the Iowa plant will get no direct federal support, though the Export-Import Bank approved a $770 million loan for the Minnesota mine on Sept. 24.^[2] Rated Unproven.

The case each side makes

For the project

Mesabi frames it as a “fully integrated American supply chain from mine to mill,” using Minnesota ore to make steel in Iowa.^[3] It promises up to 6,000 construction jobs and about 1,750 permanent ones.^[13] Foreign ownership of U.S. steel capacity is not new or unusual: CBS notes Trump also approved Japan-based Nippon Steel’s purchase of U.S. Steel.^[2] One Iowa reply to Greene’s post argued the mine and mill sit in the Midwest and will hire there.^[1]

Against it

Greene’s objection is to Trump’s framing, not to the facts, which hold up: an “America First” announcement featured an Indian-owned company that already uses H-1B visas.^[1] Minnesota critics point to the company’s track record. Trina Swanson, a Democratic congressional candidate in northern Minnesota, said in a statement quoted by KAXE that “foreign multibillion-dollar corporations will do anything in their power to restrict union involvement.”^[12]

Implications

• The graphic gets its facts right and its quote format wrong. Both factual claims in Greene’s post check out. The Trump “quote” is a headline in quotation marks. That matters little here because the substance matches, but it is how fabricated quotes usually spread.
• “Largest in history” is a forecast. It rests on a 10 million ton target for 2030 from a company whose last American megaproject went bankrupt. If only the first phase is built, the plant would tie Gary Works, not beat it.
• The H-1B question is checkable over time. Every H-1B position requires a public labor filing. If Iowa jobs go to visa holders, Lee County worksites will appear in the same Labor Department data used here.

What to watch

• An Iowa special session on tax breaks for the project.^[12]
• Site selection and permits in Lee County, which Mesabi has not finalized publicly.^[2][6]
• Labor Department filings listing Iowa worksites for Mesabi Metallics.
• The Minnesota mine, including the mineral leases now held by Cleveland-Cliffs.^[11]