President Donald Trump issued a presidential
memo on Oct. 6 ordering the approval of a proposed 211-mile industrial road in Alaska to allow access to copper and cobalt minerals.
Trump had initially approved the Ambler Road project during his first term, but
the Biden administration blocked it after taking office, citing the need to protect “a pristine area that Alaska Native communities rely on.”
In a
statement, Trump approved the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority’s (AIDEA) appeal of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) decision under the Biden administration last year.
As Aldgra Fredly reports for The Epoch Times, Trump stated that the road, which will stretch from the Dalton Highway to Alaska’s remote Ambler Mining District, would provide transportation access to an area rich in mineral deposits.
“The decision finds that the road is in the public interest given our need for access to domestic critical minerals, and there is no economically feasible and prudent alternative route,” the White House
said in a fact sheet.
The president has instructed the BLM, National Park Service, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reissue the required permits to enable construction of the road, according to the
fact sheet.
“I signed this years ago, and Biden unsigned it for me,” Trump told reporters at the Oval Office.
“This is something that should’ve been long operating and making billions of dollars for our country and supplying a lot of energy and minerals.”
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said that building the Ambler Road in Alaska will enable access to copper, lead, zinc, gold, gallium, and other minerals the country needs “to win the AI arms race against China.”
“We’ve got to get back in the mining business. China controls 85 to 100 percent of all the mining and refining of the top 20 critical minerals,” Burgum said at the press conference.
The White House
said the project is expected to create thousands of jobs, boost economic growth in rural Alaska, and open transportation access to more than 1,700 active mining claims in the district.
The Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, where the Ambler Road project would pass through, is visible from Ambler, Alaska, on Sept. 28, 2025. Annika Hammerschlag/AP Photo
The environmental group Sierra Club said it opposed Trump’s decision.
Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club’s lands protection program, said the Ambler Road will cause “significant harm” to Alaska’s landscape, as well as the local communities and wildlife in the area.
“This order ignores those voices in favor of corporate polluters,” Manuel said in a
statement. “This is no ordinary road – it’s an industrial corridor through intact forests and Alaskan landscapes long enough to connect Washington, D.C. to Philadelphia. Moreover, it would divide the migration route of the Western Arctic Caribou Herd, causing irreversible damage.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
