NASHWAUK, Minnesota – Colossal rust-red barn walls rise out of the gravel and pine forest in this northern Minnesota town. A welder’s torch spits blue sparks.

After more than two decades of sometimes dramatic stops and detours, Mesabi Metallics iron ore mine this summer will be the first to open in Minnesota in 50 years — a $2.4 billion investment bringing nearly 350 full-time jobs to the western end of the Iron Range.

The towns hopscotching northeastern Minnesota produce 80% of the nation’s iron ore, the raw material for steel that goes into ships, skyscrapers and automobiles.

Over the next century, beyond extending the life of iron ore operations, many view the Range’s next chapter as mining copper, nickel, cobalt and lithium — critical minerals that boosters say will undergird the world’s next technological revolution.

Amid the up-and-down cycle of iron ore markets, it seems progress in diversifying and expanding mining in northern Minnesota could be made with a friendly Trump administration, a Republican-controlled Congress and proposals with enough capital to move forward.

But 14 months into President Donald Trump’s second term, a return in part boosted by promises to bring jobs to factory and mining towns like Chisholm and Nashwauk, some worry that a chance at resurgence for the Range’s mining economy might be slipping away.

They had hoped Trump’s energy agenda — plus critical minerals becoming key to everything from electric vehicles to artificial intelligence expansion — would overcome environmental opposition and streamline the permitting process for new mines. But momentum for new mines has become snagged in the closely divided Congress.

And despite Trump’s call for more domestic steel, companies like the Range’s largest player, Cleveland-Cliffs, are reeling from big slowdowns in domestic auto manufacturing.

Even if the obstacles subside, the industry’s road forward will still be fraught.

“It is not easy to build a mine,” said Kathy Graul, spokeswoman for Twin Metals, the 15-year-old company that has spent more than $600 million on the project it says would target the largest untapped copper-nickel geology in the world.

The company, like everyone else in these forest towns dependent on the mines for their livelihood, remains hopeful that it will catch a break.

Meanwhile, those who oppose the mine continue their fight.

Ely, the site of a contested copper-nickel mine, waits as the debate continues about federal mining rights in the Superior National Forest.

In the recreational town of some 3,000 people, those on both sides of the mining issue can’t help bumping into each other, as they did at Dee’s Bar & Lounge.

“There’s not going to be a mine in the headwaters of the Boundary Waters,” said Becky Rom, a retired lawyer and third-generation resident, over a coffee at Northern Grounds downtown.

Julie Lucas shakes her head. Lucas is executive director of Mining Minnesota, a group advocating not only Twin Metals but other copper-nickel projects such as Talon Metals proposed farther south near Tamarack and the NewRange project near Hoyt Lakes.

“Someday we’re going to have a mine up here,” Lucas said. “Every geologist says it. It’s a matter of time.”

Twin Metals, owned by the Chilean mining giant Antofagasta, has argued a mine could be environmentally safe and boost jobs. The potential mine would not sit in the protected Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, but rather the Rainy River watershed.

Local environmentalists and tribal groups have long held that existing safeguards with this type of mining are not enough to protect the pristine watershed.

In many ways, this fight was supposed to have answers by now on the federal level.

Mineral leases and mining rights have fallen in and out of favor based on which party held the White House since President Barack Obama. Last summer, congressional Republicans led by U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber added language to the federal budget bill meant to nullify a Biden-era prohibition on mining in the Superior National Forest.

The Senate parliamentarian removed the language. But in January, Republicans passed out of the House a Congressional Review Act to end the Biden ban.

On Jan. 20, speaking before the House Rules Committee, Stauber cited statistics showing a global surge in copper demand before 2040 to meet the demands of AI, the defense industry and manufacturing, while noting that China was rushing to fill the need.

“We need to mine more and we should’ve started yesterday,” said Stauber, the Republican who represents the Iron Range. His office said he would have no further comment for this story, and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.

More than two months later, the bill has not gone to a vote in the Senate, with the clock ticking on a mid-April deadline and plenty of other issues demanding action.

Many in Ely sense the next steps — for a mine that might be years and years away — are well out of their hands.

“Whatever happens in D.C. or [St. Paul], we just need to figure out our own path forward,” said Mayor Heidi Omerza, who also teaches in the elementary school. “It’s so far off.”

Mine or not, the tourist trade serving the Boundary Waters needs to continue to be a part of Ely. Roughly a quarter-million canoeists and backpackers visit annually, with log-framed outfitters lining the main street.

Mining, though, is a bigger part of the economy, with more than 3,000 people in St. Louis County working in the industry, second only to health care.

Many see their children’s future in jeopardy. A recent edition of the Timberjay reported Ely’s school district was considering a four-day week to save money.

“I’d say both sides are right,” Monica Haynes, a research director at the Labovitz School of Business and Economics at the University of Minnesota Duluth, said of the fight between mining and recreation. “That’s part of the challenge.”

Minnesota’s two senators, Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, have signaled their opposition to Stauber’s legislation. Should the federal mineral leases be returned, there’d be intense pressure in St. Paul on the state Department of Natural Resources, which would oversee much of the mine permitting.

Klobuchar, the granddaughter of an Ely iron ore miner, is running for governor. She has not spoken on the campaign trail about Twin Metals. DFLer Grant Hauschild, who represents Hermantown north to Ely and remains one of the reliable pro-mining Democrats in the state Senate, has notably sought a middle-road on copper-nickel projects.

“I think we need to get the politics out of these issues,” Hauschild said. “If the economy gets a cold, the Iron Range gets hit even harder.”

Twin Metals is not the only critical mineral mine in the works. Talon Metals, backed by giant Rio Tinto, already has contracts signed with Tesla.

Less than an hour away, distress lingers in restaurants and homes. Hundreds of miners remain out of work a year after Ohio-based Cleveland-Cliffs idled the Minorca and Hibbing taconite mines.

In the union hall in Virginia, beneath a “United We Bargain. Divided We Beg!” banner, Al King, president of United Steelworkers Local 6115, put the blame for the 600-plus out-of-work miners squarely on Cliffs.

“They literally sunk our mine,” King said.

Cliffs has said it had no choice after contracts from automotive companies fell off.

Trump’s global tariffs cost the car industry $35 billion in 2025, according to Automotive News. Cleveland-Cliffs is the nation’s largest provider of automotive-grade steel.

The USW members on the Range are a conservative bunch, King said. They don’t want to bash Trump. But they’re not immune to trade turmoil.

“Unfortunately for us, decisions at the White House directly affect us,” King said.

State lawmakers are moving forward an unemployment benefits extension for out-of-work miners. Whole towns can hurt when the miners don’t work.

Carissa Smith, the Laurentian Chamber of Commerce’s event and office coordinator, said she left the industry during the last slowdown in 2015. She was on maternity leave from the mine, home with a new baby, when she got that layoff notice.

Now she’s worried about her father. He was working at one of the idled mines, only a couple of years shy of his pension.

“It’s no fun to look for work [at his age],” Smith said. “You’re like, ‘Please, just get me there.’”

Minnesota’s mining economy is built with safety nets for moments like this. After the Great Depression, Minnesota established the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB).

Ida Rukavina, the IRRRB’s commissioner, points to employers brought into the region, from solar manufacturer Heliene outside Mountain Iron to call centers for Delta and Detroit Reman east of Hibbing.

Despite the diversification efforts, mining remains a ticket to the middle class.

“We’re never going to be like St. Cloud or the metro,” Rukavina said.

The IRRRB doesn’t weigh in on Twin Metals — or any mining project. But the copper-nickel facilities are an attractive prospect for the Iron Range.

“We know it would [provide] very valuable, high-paying jobs,” Rukavina said.

In other words, for many, the future for a region that struggles with higher unemployment lies with the old standby, the opening of a new mine, like in Nashwauk.

Daily, upward of 900 contractors park in muddy lots surrounding Mesabi Metallics, hugging red dirt roads and pine trees. Last year Stauber, as well as Rep. Angie Craig and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan — both vying for the DFL nod for Senate later this year — visited the mine.

“This is heavy industry,” said Larry Sutherland, chief operating officer at Mesabi Metallics, as he showed off the mine. The India-owned mining company will begin manufacturing high-grade pellets from Minnesota ore this summer.

Amid the economic downturn, Mesabi is getting attention from taconite workers needing jobs.

“Our HR team is getting inbound phone calls from many, many, many of the Cliffs employees,” Mesabi CEO Joe Broking said.

The shot of enthusiasm has been felt across the Range, despite the mining project’s history of bankruptcy and broken promises.

Mining brings benefits that other industries can’t, said Pete Hyduke, mayor of Hibbing just up the road and the largest city on the Range.

Hyduke marvels how a city that cherishes its history — counting Bob Dylan and Kevin McHale among its offspring — can continually rebound from tough times caused by the industry.

“I don’t put this on Trump,” Hyduke said. “This is something that has been cyclical since the inception [of the mining industry].”

Out north of town, overlooking the Hull-Rust-Mahoning open pit mine, Hyduke stood on a viewing platform for the massive, man-made canyon. Laid off from a taconite mine in the 1980s, he used unemployment funds from the state to retrain and land a job with the city.

“My dad was the only guy working on the block when we moved to town [in 1962],” he said. “Everybody in the mines was laid off during that time, too.”

Then, another surge of mining activity came and workers were again blasting for red rock. Residents hope that the need for the work continues, whether it’s more iron ore or nickel and copper.

“I don’t think anybody wants to see irresponsible mining,” Hyduke said. “But we know the importance of self-sufficiency for our country, for our state. We have a mineral that is very important to our way of life right now.”

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