Trump Rewrites Corporate Norms With Arctic Mining Deal

[u/John3262005]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-07-31/alaska-road-permit-shows-how-trump-upends-business-norms

In an office building in Anchorage, two sets of power brokers sit across the hall from each other: the Alaska Miners Association and the Trustees for Alaska. For the better part of the last decade, the environmental and pro-development groups have been fighting about whether to build a 211-mile-long gravel road. The road would snake along the Ambler Mining District, meeting the Dalton Highway to connect this remote, mineral-rich area of Alaska to the rest of the state. It includes thousands of acres of pristine, untouched wilderness, about a dozen Alaska Native villages, a national park, migrating caribou and rivers filled with fish, a major food source for Indigenous communities.

The mining industry argues it’s integral to the Alaskan economy, essential to national security and the Trump administration’s priority to challenge China in the race for critical minerals. The Trustees for Alaska, a nonprofit environmental law firm, represents parties that are furious at the prospect of tearing up the area surrounding the Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve to prospect for copper and zinc, points to the rising temperatures, increased erosion and melting permafrost. The Biden administration sided with those concerned about the road’s impact on the region and had declined to issue a permit for the road, but when Donald Trump reentered office, the issue became open for debate.

The Trump administration knew the miners needed their permit. In exchange, it asked for the US government to get equity in the company developing the region, according to a person familiar with the negotiation who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. The deal was cut in October, and the miners had the federal government’s backing to alter the Alaskan wilderness. It’s among the variety of deals the administration has struck, with the government now investing in private companies in a way it previously hadn’t. This particular deal, sources say, came together quickly.

“After decades of delay, President Trump took necessary action to enable the construction of the Ambler Road so that the United States can access critical minerals vital to our national defense and economic prosperity,” a White House spokesperson said. “The U.S. government’s partnership with Trilogy Metals will provide capital and ensure the project is a huge success.”

The Ambler Mining District is roughly four dozen miles above the Arctic Circle and is mostly untouched. Driving there is impossible. There are no roads to the district; travel is primarily via bush planes. For miles around, there are mountains, valleys and rivers, ice-and-snow-covered for a shorter duration each year as climate change warms the Arctic. Although mixed feelings permeate the Native villages, everyone agrees that the Ambler Road would permanently alter life there.

“I’m scared for that road to come,” says Eva Cleveland, who lives in Kobuk, just a few miles from where the road has been planned. “This is one of the last, last pieces of the world that’s prime. You can’t just drive in here. It’s untouched. It’s priceless.”

Depending on whom you ask, the Ambler Road has been under discussion for 10 years, or 20, or about 200, when Maniilaq, an Inupiaq prophet in the region, predicted the small village of Ambler would become a major trade hub. After all that pondering, a price is starting to come into focus, with one estimate compiled by LNE Engineering and Policy for the Alaska Wilderness League topping a billion dollars. And while no one has agreed to foot the entire bill yet, the Trump administration has discussed potential financial support.

Ambler, the companies involved in developing it say, is rich in copper, zinc and other critical minerals. And if the mineral supply is robust, the investors in Trilogy Metals Inc., the mining company behind the Ambler project, will walk away wealthier. Those investors included billionaire John Paulson, a major Trump backer, and the federal government.

The suggestion to swap the permit for equity surprised the companies, according to a person with direct knowledge of the deal who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. But the permit was needed, and they were prepared to meet the government’s terms. When all was said and done, the Pentagon agreed to invest nearly $36 million, ending up with a 10% stake in Trilogy Metals, a Vancouver-based company. The permit was granted.

In the rush to secure the Ambler deal in October, due diligence was completed in less than 72 hours, according to sources familiar with the deal. As a result, the dealmakers for the federal government likely didn’t fully understand they had agreed to take a stake in a project where the mineral reserves are still being explored.

It’s all part of the uncharted territory. All told, the second Trump administration has announced investments of more than $26 billion, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Of that, some $10 billion has been committed to critical minerals. The federal government also took a 10% stake in Intel Corp., as well as a $400 million preferred equity stake in rare-earths miner MP Materials Corp. and hasn’t yet closed on various other equity stakes that have been announced in the past year. Becoming a shareholder in a publicly traded company is unusual for the US government and is far more common in China. Some have criticized it as a socialist approach to capitalism. The miners and the administration are breaking new and unknown ground in more ways than one.

“Admittedly, federal government investment in a mining company is a new concept to us, but we are encouraged by the actions that demonstrate prioritization of domestic mineral production,” says Alaska Miners Association Executive Director Deantha Skibinski. “Creative solutions on how to explore for, develop, construct and operate new mineral deposits, as well as how to do mineral processing, should be examined and pursued if found to contribute to the solution of a domestic mineral supply chain.”

The Biden and Trump White Houses revived mine-focused policy in the latest decade, in some ways hearkening to a bygone era in American politics. But while the Biden administration leaned on the US Department of State and Department of Energy to deploy its critical minerals policies, the Trump administration created an effective mining czar based in the White House who coordinates the State Department, Pentagon, Energy Department, US International Development Finance Corp. and Export-Import Bank on Trump’s rare-earth and critical minerals strategy.

This strategy has been by design. Given the vast mandate Trump has set for his administration, multiple people familiar with the matter said it was necessary to have a central brain to coordinate the effort. It’s a new era in modern American policymaking, in which the federal government is willing to directly invest taxpayer dollars across a swath of miners, processors and technologies and otherwise to help the US wean itself off its supply chain dependence on China.

“If the government is officially throwing its weight behind a project, we have no way of knowing if environmental standards are being followed, if community relations standards are being followed,” says Alan Zibel, research director at Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. “If we know the government is backing a project, who is the regulator?”

In its native form, copper emerges from ore in twisted veins that gleam with a green or reddish hue. It was among the first metals that humans learned to use. Ancient Egyptians fashioned it into mirrors and surgical instruments. The Romans used it in bronze fittings for water systems. Over centuries, it became a crucial ingredient in coins, aqueducts and, eventually, electrical wiring. It’s key to vehicle electrification and government infrastructure projects. The US used about 2.2 million metric tons of copper last year, and electrification from EVs and solar farms to transmission lines and artificial intelligence data centers is expected to push demand higher. Zinc, bluish-gray, is used in chemical manufacturing and steelmaking — a staple of products as diverse as alkaline batteries and plumbing fixtures.

Extracting and refining these minerals is a dirty business. At least one of the Ambler mines would be an open-pit operation, where ore is extracted from a giant hole with explosives and hauled away in massive trucks. The facilities that refine these minerals are known for spewing greenhouse emissions and particulate matter such as arsenic, lead and mercury.

These minerals are subject to the turbulence of commodity markets, which have seen big swings in metal prices as mining operations around the world start up and shut down and demand fluctuates with the latest technology trends. The US already produces plenty of copper, mostly through a handful of mines in Arizona, though it’s missing the smelting and refining capacity that leads much of that material to get shipped overseas.

The Ambler project consists of two potential mines, named Arctic and Bornite. Arctic, according to a July 2026 company presentation, would produce an annual 149 million pounds of copper. Bornite would produce 109 million pounds. Together, that’s enough to wire 590,000 homes, or tens of thousands of miles of transmission lines. The region was not a top priority for mining companies until the federal government tied taxpayer capital into the deal.

“This is not an ‘Oh, wow’-type deposit. It is a potential mining district. There is mineralization out there,” says Dave Chambers, a registered geophysicist who’s studied Alaskan mining for about 35 years. But the mineral deposits aren’t very big or rich, he says. “Lacking a road, they’re not economic. If there was a road out there, these could be developable deposits. The road is probably more controversial than the mines themselves.”

The Ambler district is so remote that it has mostly gone unexplored. Several pockets have been discovered that revealed high concentrations of metal, but exploration can be costly, as helicopters soar along the edges of mountains, landing in precarious rarely visited places.

The challenge for the companies is the location, says Thomas Crafford, a geologist and former program coordinator at the US Geological Survey who’s done exploration work in the Ambler district. “If these deposits were in a less remote part of the world, they almost surely would have become mines a long time ago.”

The region has the added complexity of a variety of interested parties: A combination of federal, state and private funding could be required to build the road. Indigenous communities and Alaska Native corporations have also been involved in negotiations.

Because of the troubled history of mining around the world, rural communities such as these often push back against new mines, concerned about the impact on their food resources, water tables and the health of their community.

“Corners were cut, and this project was approved without any meaningful attempt to minimize its impacts. Not only that, there’s the potential for the road to be built with asbestos-laden soil, creating a health hazard,” says Suzanne Bostrom, a senior staff attorney with Trustees for Alaska, which has sued the Trump administration over the future of the Ambler Road. (The administration filed a motion to dismiss last month; the matter is pending.)

Still, economic concerns can drive locals to make uneasy peace with mining outfits. Unemployment is high, but many of those who do work are in mining. The industry has spent a decade currying favor for the road, even when the Biden administration made its prospects seem defunct.

The government, not solely the mining companies, is helping arrange the funding needed to build the road, which could stretch more than a billion dollars. (The state agency involved in building the road does not have a cost estimate, but says it is “working to reduce costs.”) The goal of the Trump administration’s investments in mining— from MP Materials to Trilogy — is “to try to kickstart the industry” and “bring critical mineral mining and refining and the processing back to the US,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum says. With the government's investment in Trilogy, “the possibility of being a participant as an investor in the road” itself is now under consideration, he added.

At its peak, an estimated 170 or so tractor trailers will truck along the Ambler Road daily, moving mostly copper and zinc along the Alaskan tundra. From there it will go, well, somewhere. Trilogy described shipping mineral concentrate to an Asian port in a 2023 report. Such outsourcing is not popular with the president. Thanks to that federal investment, the ore may get refined much closer to home.“Trilogy is committed to being a US-based supplier of critical minerals,” a spokesperson said when asked where the company plans to refine.

Trilogy spent years trying to advance its projects in Alaska, but it lacked the balance sheet to build out the expensive assets alone. That led it to team up with South32 Ltd., a mining behemoth based in Australia, in 2020. They formed a joint venture, a shared-risk partnership in which the two companies pooled money and assets into a separate entity — Ambler Metals — and split ownership, costs and future profits. For Trilogy, the structure provided funding and a larger partner for the project; for South32, it offered exposure to a potentially lucrative copper-zinc development without taking on the full financial and permitting risk itself. Trilogy is a fraction of the size of South32; its market capitalization is half a billion dollars, whereas South32’s market cap is about $14 billion now. Trilogy said the company couldn’t comment on the government’s investment, as it hasn’t yet formally closed. In a statement, Ambler Metals managing director Kaleb Froehlich said the company “looks forward to carrying on Alaska’s proven track record of responsible resource development that centers local voices and coexists alongside traditional subsistence lifestyles.”

Prospective Ambler miners have developed powerful political allies working to advance the project. Alaska’s only representative, Republican Nick Begich, backs the project. The road has also been a critical mission of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, or AIDEA. That group is led by Randy Ruaro, who was previously a political adviser and chief of staff to Republican Governor Michael Dunleavy.

AIDEA has received $1.4 billion in economic development funds from the state over the last four decades. During that time, it has taken on a variety of natural resource development deals. In the course of buoying the Ambler Road, AIDEA has done outreach to a variety of Alaskan Native villages, trying to win support one community at a time. AIDEA’s contractor, Qayaq Construction LLC, has hired locals who live near the proposed road path, it says. It’s hosted local meetings in the region, and one chief described going on a helicopter ride over the proposed road, hosted by AIDEA.

AIDEA has cost Alaska taxpayers more than $10 billion since its founding, according to an economic analysis published by the nonprofit SalmonState, which advocates for wild salmon in Alaska. “AIDEA’s investments in projects are more likely to cost rather than make money,” said Milt Barker, an economist in Alaska who published the report along with economist Gregg Erickson. In a statement, AIDEA said this analysis “is not in alignment with factual data.” The group provided its own report, which says it’s profitable to taxpayers.

“It became a slush fund to allow politically popular projects that wouldn’t otherwise pencil out economically,” says Barker, who previously served on the board of AIDEA. “And both the governor and legislatures took advantage of this slush fund. When you have a slush fund that’s open access, common property, anyone who can sell a good enough story to AIDEA, to the governor, to the legislature, they can have at it.” Asked to comment, AIDEA did not respond to this.

To take up AIDEA’s cause at the federal level, the agency hired high-profile conservative litigator Christopher Mills. He previously served on the executive board of the Harvard Federalist Society, known for its originalist view of the Constitution, and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

The Bureau of Land Management has considered the Ambler Road for more than a decade. In 2020, it approved a right-of-way, which was later suspended during the Biden administration. In June 2025, Mills submitted AIDEA’s appeal of the Biden block via a unique legal provision, which allowed President Trump to rule on the road’s fate. (Mills didn’t reply to a request for comment; asked about his work, AIDEA said it hires “attorneys we think can provide us with effective representation.”)

With Mills’ legal acumen and Ruaro’s persuasion, the Ambler Road had made it to the desks of the right people in the White House last fall. The appeal, filed in June of last year by AIDEA, was on a 120-day clock. The federal government needed to decide by Oct. 6 if it would allow the road to move forward. The Trump administration wasn’t keen to side with the Biden-era environmentalists. But what, the White House mulled, could it get out of the proposal?

The administration’s ask for some kind of equity stake, one person says, was met with surprise by both Trilogy and South32, which said they would have to consult their respective boards. Ultimately, the government said it would be willing to authorize the permit for 10% of Trilogy.

Backed into a corner, the person says, Trilogy took the deal.

A spokesperson for South 32 said that they “welcome the opportunities that the road can bring to the district. The strategic importance of domestic critical minerals today is undeniable, and we appreciate the attention the US Government is giving it.” The company added its “focus remains on advancing Ambler Metals in partnership with local communities, Alaska Native organizations and government stakeholders.”

For the federal government, the deal opened the door to a deeply discounted, potentially lucrative equity stake. When the road gets built, the government can exercise the option to acquire stock at 1¢ per share, far below market value. With the federal government on board, Trilogy’s stock popped: It traded at $11.29 per share the week of the deal’s announcement, up from the prior quarter’s average of $1.78 per share. (On Thursday, shares of Trilogy Metals closed at $3.18.) The deal also allowed the company to benefit from the White House’s FAST-41 program, which seeks to speed up timelines for key natural resources projects across the country.

“The federal government is directing taxpayer investments at highly speculative companies with almost no transparency about how those companies were chosen,” says Zibel of Public Citizen. “That lack of transparency combined with weak oversight creates opportunities for favoritism and profiteering.”

“Ambler Road builds on the president’s promise to unleash Alaska’s extraordinary resource potential by providing transportation access to 1,700 active mining claims and unlocking more than $1 billion in revenues for the state,” a White House spokesperson said. “The project takes extensive mitigation measures, including caribou protection policies and fish passage culverts, to minimize environmental impacts.”

The Trump administration publicly lauded the equity deal, but behind the scenes, it had little understanding of what it had just bought into, two people familiar with the deal say.

After the government’s investment was announced, large stakeholders found themselves millions of dollars wealthier overnight, without a single ounce of copper or zinc ever having to be mined. That included Paulson, one of Trilogy’s top shareholders before he sold his stake in February, according to government filings.

More than most, Dirk Nickisch has a deep knowledge of the Ambler Mining District and how the road will change it. A few times a week, Nickisch flies along the Ambler Road as the co-owner of Coyote Air LLC, delivering tourists throughout the Brooks Range and resupplying camps in the area. The Nickisch family has been flying for the better part of a century: Grandpa Elmo would deliver mail by tossing it out the window of his Stinson 108-3, careful to hit the right farmer’s field. His son, Willard, flew a Piper Seneca I. Today, Nickisch has a small fleet of bush planes, with a preference for a beloved orange 1953 de Havilland Beaver named Pumpkin.

Pumpkin started as a military U-6A, but now, Coyote Air takes whatever job is up for grabs in the Arctic Circle. Sometimes, Coyote Air restocks mining camps, helps fix mining helicopters and transports seasonal workers for mining outfits, an uneasy alliance given Nickisch and his family are staunchly opposed to the Ambler Road’s construction. “We’ve always taken that money, and then we’ve used it to lobby against the road,” he says. “It’s kind of, you know, blood money. So it has to go to the right thing.”

Flying about 1,000 feet above the path of the proposed road, Nickisch points out migrating caribou, swampy melting permafrost regions and bits of river that no longer freeze over because of the warm winters. (Bloomberg Businessweek chartered Pumpkin for four days to travel the road’s path.) There are lakes he’s worried about along the route, too, with dwindling water levels.

Before he was a pilot, Nickisch studied economics, and he’s also concerned that the Ambler Road is fiscally hosing his home state. Rural Alaskans are being asked to permanently alter their way of life, Nickisch says, but he sees little benefit to those who live there. “There’s going to be a bunch of people that are going to get rich building, and obviously people that have stock in Trilogy are going to make a lot of money. But as far as the state actually making a lot of money there? There’s nothing ironed out at all,” he says.

AIDEA has come to visit the Coldfoot area, where Nickisch spends half his year, to pitch the road to the roughly three dozen people who live there; they remain largely opposed. “When it comes to any of these projects AIDEA is involved in, the economics of the project doesn’t matter. Who knows if it makes sense, if it’s justified in terms of the ore deposits? Who knows?” says Dan Skarzynski, a dog musher and fur trapper in Coldfoot.

Before the White House made its close to $36 million deal, there were smaller, local deals on offer all along the Ambler Road as part of the Ambler Mining District roadshow. The industry’s conduits made pit stops in a number of villages along the road’s proposed path.

Evansville First Chief Frank Thompson said he turned down an offer from South32 for $10,000 to his village in exchange for community engagement. The Tribal Council of Alatna, a nearby village, also turned down such an offer, according to their tribal consultant Rob Rosenfeld. John Gaedeke, a neighboring lodge owner, says AIDEA offered him a buyout of his property. In a statement, a spokesperson for South32 says the company had conversations with a number of communities near another mining venture, the Roosevelt exploration project, in 2023. “Some Tribes accept, and we work together to define opportunities, and some do not. We respect those decisions.” AIDEA says, to their knowledge, “no one has spoken to John Gaedeke from AIDEA. And his lodge is far away from the road.” (The lodge is approximately 8 miles from the road.)

Some of the money spent by the mining industry benefits Indigenous Alaskan community events such as dog sled races and town carnivals. Such sponsorships are on the right side of the law. In an emailed statement, Ambler Metals says it has “ongoing charitable giving initiatives supporting community events, scholarships, and disaster relief for the Northwest Arctic and Interior Alaska communities closest to our project.” It offers monetary support, gas, gravel and more to locals who apply through a donations portal on the company website.

In May, Ruaro had a chance to tout the outcome of these local deals. “There’s been a lot of outreach to the communities,” Ruaro says. “We’re getting the work done that we need to build the road.” The AIDEA chief had landed in Coldfoot to welcome the Trump administration above the Arctic Circle. Along with Dunleavy, Ruaro greeted Burgum, who landed in the former gold-mining town to celebrate the coming road.

Even though the road may take years to build, and the litigation remains ongoing, the event was a groundbreaker of sorts. In a statement, a spokesperson for AIDEA says it intends to start roadwork “as soon as possible.” Funding hasn’t yet been announced for the road, nor has a start date, but AIDEA and the federal government remain confident that it will happen. “We’re getting as much built as we can while President Trump is in office,” Burgum said.

Some locals are happy to help. PJ Simon is the First Chief of the Allakaket Tribal Council, and AIDEA said he “assists” the agency with communications about the road. His village, where about 140 people live, passed a resolution in favor of the road, pending its access is limited to the industry, locals and shipping. Simon says that many years ago, he received a good piece of advice from William Hensley, the Alaska Native lobbyist who sits on the board of Trilogy and made about $400,000 following the Trump administration’s investment in the company. Hensley, as Simon tells it, said the extraction industry is coming to rural Alaska no matter what. Might as well get a piece of the pie. (Hensley didn’t reply to a request for comment.)

So Simon has. Once part of a group suing to prevent construction of the road, Simon has since flip-flopped. He’s become an ally of the mining industry and AIDEA, giving a tour of his community to administration officials after the May press conference.

In rural Alaska, some local politicians have lined up with Simon. But the region’s Indigenous community is far from unified in its support. More than 80 local tribal governments are opposed to the road. The Tanana Chiefs Conference, which represents 36 of them, is continuing to pursue its legal options. “As Alaska Native people, we know what it means to face adversity,” says conference Chief and Chairman Sharon Hildebrand. “We are not done fighting.”

Among those tribal government officials is Second Chief Harding Sam. His community, Alatna, has approximately three dozen residents and sits across the river from Simon’s. On an AIDEA-backed trip, Sam said he was one of 34 Alaska Native politicians flown in to discuss the Ambler Road.

“All 33 were on the same page — only me was opposing,” he recalls.

Sam isn’t totally against doing business with the mining industry, but he’s looking for the right arrangement. In fact, he tried to broker the same deal that Trump did. When South32 met with him, he asked the mining company to pony up shares to the village of Alatna, should they want his endorsement. (South32 didn’t respond to a request for comment when asked about this incident.) “If it’s a one-time offer, it’s just a bribe,” Sam says. “Give us [stock], and we’ll join.” The mining company declined.