Digging in
A photo of BHP and Rio Tinto bosses with Donald Trump in the Oval Office captures the broader shift in business culture from ESG ideals to raw industrial power.
The image of Australia’s top mining bosses standing alongside the US president in the Oval Office captures the cultural realignment in global business this year so perfectly it could pass for being AI-generated.
In the photos, a smiling Donald Trump is flanked to his right by Rio Tinto’s incoming CEO, Australian Simon Trott, and its outgoing boss, Jakob Stausholm. To his left is BHP chief executive Mike Henry and US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. Henry, Trott and Stausholm were there to discuss their Resolution Copper joint venture in Arizona, which they hope will become the largest copper mine in the US.
It is the kind of project that fits neatly into Trump’s vision of rebuilding America’s industrial base — with its output earmarked to remain in the country for domestic infrastructure.
The meeting, set up to celebrate the project passing a key milestone, was disrupted by a court challenge from Native American groups and environmentalists — or “Radical Left Activists” as Trump labelled them in a Truth Social post.
