Trump's $15bn Iowa steel mill is being built by firm with deep Russian links, Al Jazeera finds
Al Jazeera reports that Mesabi Metallics, the Essar-owned firm behind the $15bn Iowa steel megaplant announced by Donald Trump on Monday, is linked through India's Essar Group to Russian energy giant Rosneft, whose joint-venture refiner Nayara Energy is under EU sanctions.
The $15bn Iowa steel megaplant Donald Trump announced at the Oval Office on Monday is being built by Mesabi Metallics, a Minnesota-based firm owned by India’s Essar Group, whose energy arm was sold to a Russian-led consortium in 2016 — a link Al Jazeera’s investigation traces through sanctioned Russian interests. Al Jazeera
Ravi Ruia, a cofounder of the Essar Group, stood behind Trump’s right shoulder at the Oval Office announcement. A decade earlier his brother Shashi appeared in a photo with Vladimir Putin during the signing of another major deal. Essar Oil, the group’s energy arm, was sold in 2016 for $12.9bn to a Russian-led consortium and rebranded as Nayara Energy — a company now 49 per cent owned by Russian gas major Rosneft and under EU sanctions imposed last July.
Al Jazeera stresses there is “no evidence of any sanctions breach” in Essar’s investment in Mesabi or the planned Iowa plant, and Essar itself faces no US or EU sanctions. But the investigation notes further ties: a $3.9bn VTB loan to Essar that reporting by The Guardian and SourceMaterial in April 2026 said was moved to Mauritius allegedly to avoid sanctions, and Nayara’s role supplying petroleum to Russia during its fuel crisis this year.
The White House is touting the project — expected to produce 7.5 million tonnes of steel a year in its first phase and create at least 1,750 permanent jobs — as a tariff-driven manufacturing win. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters: “these are your 232 tariffs, the steel tariffs at work. Without those tariffs, this mine and steel plant doesn’t get built.”
The timing adds tension: days earlier, Trump signed legislation empowering him to punish countries buying Russian oil with tariffs of up to 100 per cent. India, Russia’s second-largest oil buyer, imported roughly 2.1 million barrels a day of Russian crude in August, according to Reuters — though Trump removed the extra 25 per cent tariff he imposed on Indian imports in 2025 after New Delhi committed in February to stop buying Russian crude.
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