The White House has published the American Manufacturing Renaissance Report, dated November 2026, which catalogues 522 manufacturing projects announced since President Trump took office in January 2025. The report puts their combined investment value at $383.3 billion, with 57 percent going to brownfield sites (existing plants) and 43 percent to greenfield sites (new plants). Within that total, the report places the metals, minerals and materials sector at 104 projects and $61.3 billion, or 16 percent of announced investment value, making it the largest sector by number of projects and third by value, behind semiconductors ($159.8 billion) and pharmaceuticals and biotechnology ($63 billion).
The report credits tariffs under Section 232 and Section 301 and tax provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act for the trend. As an administration publication, the report presents these figures from its own perspective, and the project values it cites have not been independently verified in this article. Steel and aluminum are reported as a subsector of metals, comprising 23 projects worth $36.7 billion, or 10 percent of total announced value.
The largest investors in the subsector are Mesabi Metallics, Hyundai Steel and Century Aluminum. The report describes Mesabi Metallics' project as a fully integrated steel complex in Iowa and Minnesota, but cites its value as $15 billion in one section and $18 billion in another, and the figure should be read with that discrepancy in mind. Hyundai Steel is investing almost $6 billion in an electric arc furnace-based steel mill in Louisiana, which the report says will support 1,300 direct and 4,100 indirect jobs.
The report notes that China's share of world crude steel production rose from 18 percent in 2001 to 53 percent in 2024, citing Economic Policy Institute and Guardian analyses. On aluminum, the report states that the United States had 20 primary aluminum smelters at the turn of the millennium and that less than a third remained in 2025, citing the US Geological Survey. In July 2026, the report says, the President directed the Commerce Department to create an incentive program for new and expanded US primary aluminum production.
Critical minerals form another focus. The report lists nine critical-minerals projects totaling $12 billion, led by Korea Zinc's smelter in Clarksville, Tennessee, which the report cites at $7 billion in one section and $7.4 billion in another. Six projects worth $4.2 billion are dedicated to rare-earth magnets or rare-earth processing, including MP Materials in Northlake, Texas ($1.25 billion), USA Rare Earth in Blacksburg, South Carolina ($1.2 billion) and Vulcan Elements in Benson, North Carolina ($918 million).
The report cites International Energy Agency data showing China accounted for 91 percent of refined rare-earth output and 94 percent of sintered permanent magnets in 2024. It also references China's April 2025 export restrictions on rare earth elements and magnets, and states that Ford idled its Explorer plant in Chicago for a week in May 2025 because of a rare-earth magnet shortage, citing Fortune reporting from June 2025. According to the report, in January 2026 a Section 232 investigation found that imports of processed critical minerals threaten to impair national security.
The President subsequently directed negotiations with trading partners on those imports and the pursuit of price floors with allies. The report also describes Project Vault, a stockpile of nearly $12 billion financed by a $10 billion Export-Import Bank loan and private capital, which it says is designed to shield American manufacturers from shortages, citing E&E News reporting from February 2026. The report also links metals to the energy transition and grid infrastructure.
It states that Cleveland-Cliffs is the only domestic producer of grain-oriented electrical steel used in grid transformers, from its Butler, Pennsylvania mill. It cites Wood Mackenzie projections of a 30 percent supply deficit in power transformers in 2025, and reports that Hitachi Energy broke ground in 2026 on a $457 million large power transformer facility. The report's macro section states that the ISM Manufacturing PMI returned above 50 in January 2026 and that US manufacturers added 72,000 jobs from December 2025 through September 2026, according to the report, which cites ISM and payroll data.
The report does not provide metal price data, and its project values are announced investments rather than completed capacity. Readers should treat the announced figures as company or government-reported commitments whose timing and completion remain to be confirmed.
Source: whitehouse.gov