Indian firm building $15bn Trump-announced steel mill has deep Russia ties

As US President Donald Trump announced a $15bn steel megaplant while seated at his Oval Office desk on Monday, he had a lineup of mostly US politicians standing behind him – from cabinet members to elected representatives from Iowa, where the mill is to be built. There was one exception: an Indian man with a receding hairline and a lilac pocket handkerchief, standing behind the US president’s right shoulder. Ravi Ruia is a cofounder of the Essar Group, which owns Mesabi Metallics, the Minnesota-based firm that’s building the steel mill, which is expected to be the United States’s largest once it is complete.

A decade earlier, in October 2016, his brother Shashi was in the photo frame with a different president during the signing of another major deal: Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Steel and metallics aren’t Essar’s only association with minerals and natural resources.