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For over a century, the United States was the largest iron ore producer in the Americas, before it was overtaken by Brazil in the 1970s. Since the late 19^th century, the U.S. had the highest iron output in the world, and (apart from a few years in the 1930s) it held this position until the late 1950s, when it fell behind the Soviet Union. At the turn of the 20^th century, Australia, Brazil, and China emerged as the world leaders, with Australia having the highest output in recent years.

U.S. output averaged at around 60 million tons per year in the first three decades of the 20^th century, before the Great Depression saw output plummet from 74 million tons in 1929 to just 10 million tons in 1932. It took a decade for consistently high production to return to the iron mining industry, peaking at 120 million tons in 1953, before output declined and it has fluctuated between 40 and 60 million tons in most years since the 1980s. In contrast, Brazil's output was comparatively low until the 1960s, before output spiked in the mid-1970s, when it became the largest iron producer in the Americas, and today it is the second largest producer in the world.