An Iowa steel mill? Trump, GOP keep ignoring Americans' needs | Opinion - USA Today
I was at the grocery store the other day wondering what it’s like to be a millionaire who can afford ground beef when a thought popped into my head: “You know what would fix these high food prices? A new steel mill in Iowa that will not start running until 2030 at the earliest!”
Well, just a day later, on Sept. 28, my prayers were answered. President Donald Trump addressed the small portion of Americans who still have enough money for internet service and announced that a company owned by an Indian conglomerate will build a $15 billion steel plant in Iowa. One where steel production, according to a Wall Street Journal report, “could begin in 2030.”
With midterm elections fast approaching, this is excellent news for voters who have cars that run on steel that won’t appear for at least four years.
“Two years ago our country was dead, and now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world, and it’s not even close,” Trump declared. (It wasn’t clear if the “it’s not even close” was referencing the profound incorrectness of the first part of his sentence. It certainly should have.)
Americans are mad about the state of the economy. A recent New York Times/Sienna poll found 73% of voters rate the economy “poor” or “only fair.”
In poll after poll, Trump’s approval rating is slipping to a “historic low,” including a Sept. 25 Wall Street Journal poll that put him at 37% approval, the “lowest of any president heading into midterm elections in Journal polls dating to 1990.”
The top priority for the head of the Republican Party right now should be highlighting how the party is going to quickly help bring down the cost of living for Americans. But Trump’s big to-do about the announcement of an Iowa steel mill looked more like flop sweat than a solution to outrageous gas and food prices.
The Mesabi Metallics steel mill – which might bring in up to 1,750 permanent jobs, along with construction work as it’s built – is certainly a boon to southeast Iowa.
The president's followers might recall a July 2017 announcement in which Trump heralded a $10 billion Foxconn electronics factory in Wisconsin. Four years later, Reuters reported that “Foxconn will reduce its planned investment to $672 million from $10 billion and cut the number of new jobs to 1,454 from 13,000.”
If I’m an Iowa voter, I wouldn’t count my steel chickens until they’re forged.
At no point in his steel mill announcement did Trump acknowledge that Americans are struggling. He simply crowed, falsely, about how fantastic everything is under his administration – “Best economy we’ve ever had” – and claimed, falsely, that the polls showing Republicans in hot water heading into the midterms are fake.
He repeated his absurd promise/bribe to give every American adult $5,000 only if Republicans maintain control of both houses of Congress. (I wouldn’t spend that in advance, if I were you.)
And he said of the disastrous Iran war he started: “As soon as that war ends, inflation is gonna be eradicated totally.”
Yes, that’s definitely a thing people deciding whether to buy gas or food this week are going to believe.
Life in America has never been better!
Inflation is about to go away forever!
Trump and his flailing party’s midterm candidates have reached the point of just throwing things at the electoral wall in the hope something sticks. And if they think that’s going to be enough come the November elections, I have a bridge made of Iowa steel (steel not available until 2030 at the earliest) to sell them.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk.
