WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said he had signed an executive order to allow construction of an access road to the Ambler mining district in Alaska and unlock domestic supplies of copper and other minerals.

The move reverses the Biden administration’s rejection of a 211-mile (340-km) road intended to enable mine development in the north central Alaskan region. Biden’s Interior Department had cited risks to caribou and fish populations that dozens of native communities rely on for subsistence.

“This is something that should have been long operating and making billions of dollars for our country and supplying a lot of energy and minerals and everything else that we are talking about,” Trump said at a signing event in the Oval Office.

(Reporting by Steve Holla

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