Trump Hosts BHP and Rio Tinto Chiefs in High-Stakes Arizona Copper Mine Talks
Copper, culture, and politics collide as Trump hosts mining titans in Oval Office showdown over Arizona’s most controversial project.

In the Oval Office this week, President Donald Trump met with BHP CEO Mike Henry and Rio Tinto executives Jakob Stausholm and Simon Trott to discuss the fate of Resolution Copper, a vast mining project in Arizona that has been mired in legal and political battles for decades. The high-stakes meeting underscored how one of the largest untapped copper deposits in North America has become a lightning rod in the broader struggle over America’s mineral security, environmental protection, and Indigenous rights.
The timing was no accident. Just one day earlier, a federal appeals court issued a temporary injunction halting the transfer of federal forest land to the mining giants, delaying the project once again. For President Trump, who has made reshoring supply chains and boosting resource independence central to his agenda, the ruling was more than a setback. He lashed out at opponents online, branding them “radical left activists” and accusing them of serving the interests of foreign competitors rather than American workers.
