Apache win reprieve to halt Arizona copper mine

Trump this week threw his full support behind huge project on a sacred site.

- By KEvin RECTOR

THE PROPOSED MINE would turn Oak Flat into a nearly 2-mile-wide, 1,000-foot-deep industrial crater.

President Trump this week threw his full support behind a massive project to tum a sacred Apache site outside Phoenix into one of the world’s largest copper mines, meeting with mining executives at the White House and ridiculing a recent court decision that temporarily halted the transfer of federal lands to their companies.

Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum met in the White House on Tuesday with several executives from Rio Tinto and BHP, the two multinational mining companies behind the planned Resolution Copper mine. As proposed, the mine would tun Oak Flat — a long-preserved site of rocky outcroppings and desert waterways in the Tonto National Forest — into a nearly 2-mile-wide, 1,000-foot-deep industrial crater.

Trump also posted about the project on his Truth Social site, calling the three-judge U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel that blocked the transfer a “Radical Left Court” and saying it was “sad” that “Radical Left Activists” could stall such a project.

“3,800 Jobs are affected, and our Country, quite simply, needs Copper — AND NOW!” Trump wrote.

He also wrote, without evidence, that those fighting the mine are “Anti-American” and working on behalf of “other Copper competitive Countries.”

The San Carlos Apache Tribe, which is among the plaintiffs suing to block the mine, called the court’s decision a “last-minute victory” in its ongoing battle to save the land.

“The Apache people will never stop fighting for Chichil Bildagoteel,” tribe Chairman Terry Rambler said in a statement, using the traditional Apache name for Oak Flat.

“We thank the court for stopping this horrific land exchange and allowing us to argue the merits of our pending lawsuit in court.”

Trump’s decision to directly weigh in further elevates the already large profile of a monumental legal battle.