Hey Joe, you should be hard put to find someone who would disagree with what you posted, at the very least everyone here must have had same thoughts at one time or another.
For Cliffs, they must have reasoned this through before they put their foot in. Yes their stock is down and so is just about every one else's. Companies who have cash on hand, or can easily get hold of some, are able to aquire assets on the cheap precisely Because most companies with their assets are now dirt cheap. Cliffs knowing full well that great chromite assets are sparse world wide and production wise non-existant in N. America got in early to get a hold of a sure thing.
Should Cliffs get fed up with the FN or governments, things could go just as you suggest.

As for Noront, I disagree with your assumption that Noront needs Cliffs. Noront could use Cliffs Only for easier development of it's chromite deposit. The nickel ore is totally independent of what Cliffs may provide. I say totally because it can be developed per previous Noront plan ( pipe and east-west route), However should the rail line become available it would make things easier, meaning even cheaper to operate a nickel mine. The nickel mine would not cost us billions but I guesstimate about a billion.

As for the natives, you are dead right. They need to be waken up to the reality while the politicians need to roll up their sleeves and get to work for all of us instead of themselves.