Donald Trump’s first presidency saw him rollback an Obama administration plan to cancel federal leases and withdraw land near the Boundary Waters from mineral exploration, quickly clearing the path for a planned copper-nickel mine to move ahead.
Twin Metals Minnesota and its supporters are hoping for similar action next year. President Joe Biden ordered a 20-year mining ban on the same 225,000 acres of Superior National Forest in 2022. Trump, at a July rally in St. Cloud, said he would end the ban in “about 10 minutes.”
A second Trump presidency was put in motion this week when the Republican declared victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, and while attention may center on the Twin Metals project, the most immediately impactful decisions for Iron Range mining revolve around the legacy steel industry.
Deal or no deal: U.S. Steel
First and foremost on the agenda could be the potential sale of U.S. Steel to a foreign company. U.S. Steel owns Keetac in Keewatin, Minntac in Mountain Iron and about 15% of Hibbing Taconite on the Iron Range.
Japan’s Nippon Steel said it hopes to close on a $15 billion purchase of the iconic American company before the end of the year, despite stiff opposition from the United Steelworkers union, and both the current and incoming presidents.
The Biden administration could have formally blocked the deal, but instead allowed Nippon to refile its plan with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). A recent report noted there was increasing confidence the CFIUS committee would recommend approval on Dec. 22. Analysts supporting the deal have argued Nippon’s investment and size would put the American steel industry as a whole on better financial grounds.
Closing the deal this year now relies on a narrow window before Trump officially retakes the White House, and the companies are still awaiting a Department of Justice (DOJ) antitrust review.
Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves told CNBC last week that Nippon was “so far behind their schedule to close, we just don’t know what is going to happen there.” Cliffs was competing with the Japanese company to buy U.S. Steel, but could have room to maneuver after closing on its Stelco purchase or if assets become available to satisfy the DOJ.
Nippon and Cliffs could opt to reconcile the Stelco option at Minntac, and the ownership at Hibbing Taconite, or explore a land deal near HibTac that U.S. Steel and Cliffs previously declined to discuss.
Trump and his “America First” agenda hasn’t wavered from the stance that U.S. Steel should remain an American company, telling the Economic Club of Chicago in mid-October that it would be “psychologically difficult” if it were foreign owned. He added he “would stop it, if it hasn’t been completed” when he takes office, adding to the fraught nature of the short timeline following the CFIUS review.
Another unknown factor for Nippon, should the sale drag into the new administration, is whether the company could leverage Mike Pompeo, the former CIA Director under Trump. Nippon hired Pompeo in July to advise on the U.S. Steel purchase, and both Reuters and the Wall Street Journal have him on a short list for a spot in Trump’s cabinet.
Steel tariffs, but only if necessary?
Trump has proposed tariffs up to 20% on all imports and 60% on Chinese products. His first presidency enacted tariffs on steel and aluminum, some of which Biden not only kept but expanded on over his term.
Tariffs have potential downstream impacts on consumer prices, a risk the incoming president will have to weigh after winning the White House back on the heels of prolonged high inflation, but trade protection in the form of curbing illegal steel dumping has helped the industry in the past.
Goncalves, speaking to CNBC and during the company’s third quarter earnings call Tuesday morning, said imports “are a fact of life,” but “not all imports are created equal.” He called Canada the best trade partner for the U.S. and the relationship a factor in Cliffs purchasing Stelco. He also noted Canadian officials have enacted similar tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles.
Celso Goncavles, chief financial officer of Cliffs, said on the earnings call Tuesday a lot of factors were pointing in the right direction for the steel industry. Interest rates started to come down, an auto industry rebound was expected, more manufacturing was onshoring, more demand could come from federal CHIPS and IRA programs, and they were anticipating more trade protection.
Those factors, Lourenco Goncalves said, had Cliffs optimistic tariffs could be avoided for the industry going into 2025 — citing to CNBC positive conversations before the election with Trump (and Harris) surrogates about the importance of steel and protecting the domestic market — by closing off backdoor steel dumping avenues through Mexico.
He called last year a big accomplishment for the industry by showing officials China and Japan were not friends to the U.S. industry, and hoped for a more realistic approach in 2025 that deployed tariffs … if needed.
“Tariffs are medicine,” Goncalves said. “It’s important to not get sick. We are sick in the United States. We, as a country, don’t understand how bad it is to allow imports to destroy the economy and complicate the lives of the middle class. Just because the big picture is OK, it doesn’t mean the lives of Americans are OK.”
The 10-minute warning
Ending the Superior National Forest mining moratorium — within 10 minutes or not — and restoring the Twin Metals leases would check off the first to-do list item Iron Range supporters have for Trump.
Since it only takes executive action to reverse, Trump could pick off low-hanging fruit here on Day 1.
A spokesperson for Republican U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber told the Star Tribune that “the first thing our office did this morning was reach out to the Trump transition team to ensure we have a clear path for critical mineral mining.”
Wiping out Biden’s executive order wouldn’t launch the Twin Metals project, but it would allow the subsidiary of Chilean mining giant Antofagasta to start moving forward on exploration toward the environmental review process of its proposal.
Project 2025 looms, even if Trump had tried to distance himself from it. Republicans could also push legislation to significantly impact the project and timeline.
The Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 was introduced in the U.S. Senate this July. Stauber legislation, the Superior National Forest Restoration Act, passed through the House in April. It would overturn the mineral withdrawal, return leases to Twin Metals and limit litigation avenues and judicial review for environmental groups opposing such projects.
Those groups have described the Stauber measure as radical overreach by the legislative branch.
A federal GOP trifecta doesn’t guarantee the Stauber law cruises through Congress either. Democrats still have the filibuster and Republicans likely won’t have 60 votes to break it.
The budget is a different matter. It takes a simple majority and if such a law is plugged into the National Defense Act, a law with broad bipartisan support, it would be hard to whip votes against it.
“The threat is real here,” said Steve Schultz, government relations manager of Friends of the Boundary Waters, during a webinar Wednesday. “We always had the fact the Senate was controlled by Democrats and would generally not do something to reverse their president’s order. We had backstops.”
2026 session
Schultz told supporters not to “wear your rose-colored glasses” about their mining legislation in St. Paul next year.
The status quo of Gov. Tim Walz will be in place, who has generally been viewed as not the hindrance for mining. The DFL still controls the Senate by one vote, but District 3 Sen. Grant Hauschild has not supported bills from copper-nickel mining opposition groups.
In the House, a likely 67-67 tie could spell deadlock out of the gates. Republicans and Democrats would need to negotiate a speaker to run the floor before committees could be established.
It opens the door for partisanship to rule the day, but could open opportunities for Range area legislators to be in position to hold back Prove it First, the Bad Actor Bill and a tax measure environmental groups support.
The bills could effectively nullify federal efforts toward these projects, but haven’t had a chance in recent years for a hearing, much less a floor vote in the DFL House that still featured Iron Range Democrats.
