White House doubles down on Alaska mining, buys 10% of Trilogy Metals

The United States plans to buy roughly 10% of Trilogy Metals for $35.6 million, or around €30.5mn, with warrants that could lift the stake by an additional 7.5%.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told reporters on Monday evening that the US is making the investment "so we can make sure that we're securing these critical mineral supplies, and that ownership will benefit the American people".

The capital is intended to accelerate exploration in Alaska’s Ambler Mining District, which the White House approved on Monday, reversing Biden-era permit denials tied to environmental concerns.

Burgum said the project is crucial to securing domestic supplies of minerals like copper and cobalt, feeding into US efforts to surpass China in the ongoing race for AI and microchip production. Burgum also pitched it as an economic catalyst for Alaska.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to prioritise Alaska’s resource development and authorise construction of an approximately 200-mile industrial road to the Ambler region where the resources are located.

Trilogy, a Vancouver-based explorer and developer, holds a 50% interest in Ambler Metals LLC. Ambler holds a 100% interest in the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in northwestern Alaska.

The announcement follows other recent pledges from the US government to invest in strategic industries. The Trump administration said it would take an equity stake in another Canadian mining company, Lithium Americas, after buying a 10% stake in Intel earlier this year.

A reversal of Biden policy

The long-debated Ambler Road project was approved in Trump's first term, but was later blocked by the Biden administration after an analysis determined the project would threaten caribou and other wildlife, as well as harming Alaska Native tribes that rely on hunting and fishing.

The gravel road and mining project, north of Fairbanks, Alaska, “is something that should’ve been long operating and making billions of dollars for our country and supplying a lot of energy and minerals,” Trump said.

Former President Joe Biden “undid it and wasted a lot of time and a lot of money, a lot of effort. And now we’re starting again. And this time we have plenty of time to get it done," Trump added.

Opponents of the project, including a consortium of 40 federally recognised tribes, worry that development allowed by the road would put subsistence harvests at risk because the lands include important habitat for salmon and caribou.

Karmen Monigold, an Inupiaq member of Protect the Kobuk, a Northwest Arctic advocacy group opposed to the access road, said she cried when she first learned of Trump's actions.

“And then I reminded myself of who we are, and who our people are and how far we’ve come,'' she said Monday in a telephone interview. “They tried to assimilate us, to wipe us out, and yet we’re still here. We still matter.”

Monigold said she hopes Alaska Native groups will file lawsuits, as they have done before, to halt the project.

The Republican-controlled House approved a bill last month that would pave the way for Trump to expand mining and drilling on public lands in Alaska and other states.

The vote, largely along party lines, would repeal land management plans adopted in the closing days of Biden’s administration that restricted development in large areas of Alaska, Montana and North Dakota.

Biden’s goal was in part to reduce climate-warming emissions from the burning of fossil fuels extracted from federal land. Under Trump, Republicans are casting aside those concerns as they open more taxpayer-owned land to development, hoping to create more jobs and revenue and boost fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas.

The administration also has pushed to develop critical minerals, including copper, cobalt, gold and zinc.

While Trump has often said, “drill, baby, drill,” he also supports “mine, baby, mine,” Burgum said on Monday.