The advantage isn't taking metals back. It's using them on Mars. If there really is even just metallic iron, that'd be a HUGE benefit for colonization.
However, without trade, the colony will always be dependent on its parent nation. And that's not really a colony, it's just an outpost. A really expensive outpost.
The advantage with asteroids (and to some extent lunar development), is that you can serve other markets. Even if it's not cost effective to bring the product back to Earth, as long as it's cheaper than launching from Earth, there should be a small but growing market for in-orbit delivery. Starting with fuel, then air/water, then bulk shielding and crude structures, and developing through more complex manufactured materials. And each stage also feeds back on itself, if you can supply fuel cheaper than Earth-launch, you lower your own running costs, and make whole new activities possible in space which creates whole new markets...
Such a process, once started, should then develop naturally, with each stage paying for itself and creating a market for the next stage; without requiring constant funding through traditional space agencies. [Although it will also give space agencies more bang for their buck. As well as making space exploration easier to justify to the average voter, and the very average politicians.] Until one day you read about how many people permanently live in space, and you realise that we are finally genuinely out there.
Mars won't do that. It will always be a "program", a drain. Historically, colonies like that always fail.
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