‘The deal is done’: Trump’s $15 billion Iowa steel deal comes with a catch: new tax breaks

Iowa lawmakers will return to the Statehouse Friday to consider expanding the ceiling on state tax incentives in an effort to secure a $15 billion steel plant project for the state.

President Donald Trump announced the plant Monday alongside Iowa elected officials, heralding the project as a major economic and national security investment.

Five weeks before the midterm elections, Republicans seized on the promise of good-paying jobs and a central role for the heartland in the push for American steel manufacturing. It’s celebrated as an opportunity for southeast Iowa, an area along the Mississippi River that once thrived as a hub for industry but has since suffered from shuttered facilities and dwindled populations. Still, the deal and the tax abatements it could carry have also been met with some skepticism in rural Iowa and Des Moines alike.

And while Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the “deal is done,” state action and local officials in the days since suggest otherwise.

Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds on Tuesday called lawmakers back for the special session, saying “reasonable and limited updates” to the state’s economic development program were needed to advance the project proposed by Mesabi Metallics, a Minnesota company owned by the India-based conglomerate Essar Group.

The terms of an agreement between the state and Mesabi Metallics have been outlined in a memorandum of understanding; neither provided a copy when asked for one.

While the specific location remains undisclosed, elected officials have indicated........

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