Adam Steen touts Iowa manufacturing despite outsourcing to China

Adam Steen is campaigning for Iowa governor as an entrepreneur and job creator, even though his company outsourced production to China.

Steen is one of several Republicans vying to succeed retiring Gov. Kim Reynolds. The winner of the June 2 primary will likely face Democratic state auditor Rob Sand in the general election.

In 2015, Steen co-founded 27:3 Outdoors, a Christian-based hunting supply company known for turkey fans, an umbrella-like device that allows hunters to get close to turkeys by mimicking the birds’ shape and size.

Steen admitted in an October 2025 Instagram post that the fans are assembled overseas.

“When my friend and I invented the turkey fan, we wanted to build it right here in Iowa,” Steen wrote. “But we couldn’t find a local manufacturer willing to take it on. In the end, we were forced to outsource to China, and it made me sick.”

Steen also shares this story on his campaign website and says the experience deepened his resolve to bring more manufacturing to Iowa. His site, however, does not articulate any policies to achieve this goal.

Steen is also a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump. Public Citizen reports that 200,000 American jobs were offshored during Trump’s first term.

“Thank you President Trump for your fearless leadership and relentless commitment to putting Americans first,” Steen wrote on X last year.

Steen’s pledge to bring jobs back to Iowa was further undermined by a recent campaign ad in which he boasted that he would “stop China from stealing the American dream.” The ad features stock footage of farmland with the words “Keep Iowa Free” emblazoned across it. The footage, however, was shot in Georgia.

The Cook Political Report, which evaluates the competitiveness of political campaigns, currently ranks the Iowa governor’s race as a toss-up.