translated from Spanish: Minnesota’s “nightmare” unforces Luksic again

In May inside the Luksic group, they knew that the ghost of Minnesota would grieve them again. But not perhaps with the reputational effects that the case has in the figure of one of the strongmen of the group, Andronic Luksic.
It all goes back several years and the background that the American wall Street Journal (WSJ) published in 2017. In that report, it was echoed that an investment firm linked to billionaire entrepreneurs part of the controlling group of Quiñenco (CCU, Banco de Chile, Antofagasta Minerals), owned a house that leased to the daughter of the president of the United States, Donald Trump.
It wasn’t about any house. The mansion was acquired, just as the change of government was happening, at about $5.5 million by an Andronicus investment company. 650 square meters as recorded in The New York Times. And not a minor data: in the same Tracy Place neighborhood in the Kalorama neighborhood, live Jeff Bezos and former President Obama.
The Washington Post had recounted in January 2017 that the neighborhood had become fashionable and that “Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner and their three children are moving into a six-bedroom, five-fireplace house that was included last year for a relatively reasonable price of $ 5.5 million,” without reference to the owner.
In early May, Newsweek revived the relationship signalled in 2017 by the WSJ regarding eventual ties between Luksic and Trump by leasing the house to their daughter. The media associated certain favors with a mining project in Minnesota, the same as just two weeks before Obama left power had his exploration licenses frozen.
The Luksic landing in Minnesota came after a gold and copper project in Pakistan (Reko Diq) was scrapped as part of their international development. Twin Metals, the firm that was installed in Duluth, Minnesota, then emerged.
“One of the latest technical reports from Twin Metals’ consolidated resources confirmed that the project could be transformed into one of the largest precious metal deposits in the world of its kind. From Duluth, Twin Metals’ inferred resources are 5.6 million ounces of platinum, 12.7 million ounces of palladium and 3.1 million ounces of gold. (…) As for base metals, Twin Metals provides an inferred resource of 6,168,856 tons of copper, equivalent to almost four years of production of all Codelco’s own work,” said a 2013 report by the Financial Journal.
When the Obama administration withdrew authorizations from the project, the Luksic-linked firm sued the United States, but Trump’s arrival in power left the action to nothing.
It had been a hectic month. Prior to the Newsweek chronicle, on May 1, another report had given the group clues that the hand was heavy. “A Chilean company claims Minnesota water, ” said an extensive report in English that noted that the Twin Metals project considers the operation of an underground mine, a ore crushing facility, a water waste storage well above Lake Superior and a network of roads, railways and pipes to connect everything.
The chronicle of the mine’s rise in the Rainy River basin, “an aquatic landscape carved by the early desert glacier, given the highest order of protection in the United States. Unlike traditional iron ore extraction, copper is found in sulfur-containing rocks. When snow and rain accumulate in reserves and wells of pulverized copper ore residues, the by-product is sulfuric acid, a pollutant with the ability to silence ecosystems.”
The report argued that in any case, Trump’s coming to power silenced any opposition to the project and that during his first month in office, scientific studies that spoke of guarding the area were ruled out. “The owner of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s mansion in Washington DC received lease renewals from the Trump administration for a copper and nickel mine that could turn a Minnesota protected wilderness area into a “bacinica giant,” then tweeted a former chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, as picked up by Newsweek.
Close to the company they claim that they have taken the environmental precautions, that they have handed all the background to the authority and that only about 7 years from now would a mining project be formalized on site. Not without first going through environmental approval processes.
Today’s report of The New York Times Tuesday tied other ends, which during the morning unleashed Luksic’s wrath. The note echoed that one of the “entrepreneurs” who owned a giant Minnesota mining project had received authorizations for their mining exploration contracts.
The reference cited – again – the lease that a firm tied to Andronic Luksic’s family office makes Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband.
Luksic’s outrage
Today’s report from The New York Times adds that Twin Metals, controlled by Antofagasta Minerals, spent about $900,000 on lobbying efforts to convince the Trump administration to renew his permits.
Luksic’s annoyance, while unnoticed, had its first echo on May 6. Then on his Twitter the businessman said – in relation to Newsweek – that “this article contains false and repeated information. Like I said two years ago: I don’t know Ivanka Trump and her husband. The companies I control invested in real estate in the United States more than 15 years ago, totally independent of Antofagasta (Minerals) projects,” he said on Twitter, the first-person network of the issues that call him.
The extensive New York Times report known today adds a friendism between the company and the Trump administration, more lax in its environmental policies. He also notes that he has accessed emails showing off the relationship and adds the antecedent of the lease link between Trump’s heiress and Luksic’s investment firm.
The allusion slain the employer’s outrage. “Until when the same story!!! I said it in 2017 and I repeat: I DO NOT know the Kushner-Trump. A company I control has a house, which they lease. NO RELATIONSHIP WITH Twin Metals project. I don’t know with what intention they mix two things NOT related!!”, he said on the social network.
Luksic’s reaction generated, at least on his Twitter, several supportive reactions that spoke of fake news. In that sense, “putting your face” was good for the businessman.
Internally, the businessman’s annoyance is explained by the reason that his relationship with the company that leases the house to Trump and her husband does not link him to his miner. Even more so, when the one who makes those investment decisions is their general manager in the family office, Rodrigo Terré, says his version.
Total containment
Internal containment was total. In the afternoon, Antofagasta Minerals came out to defend its position. Antofagasta Minerals categorically rejects the insinuations made by The New York Times against one of its directors, the company and its Twin Metals project.”
The firm said that for more than nine years, Twin Metals have been involved in the exploration and development of an underground mining project and that to date Twin Metals has invested more than US$450 million in acquisitions, explorations, technical activities , environmental and development in Minnesota.
“Throughout its history, the project has advanced under the administration of 10 different U.S. governments, beginning in 1966, when the U.S. government first granted it federal mining licenses. These licenses remained in force for more than 50 years and were renewed twice before the previous government’s decision in December 2016 to deny them. This determination lacked legal or factual basis,” they detailed.
Also, regarding the friendism between Trump and Luksic, to which American publications allude, they added that the change in policy in the licenses relates to the federal laws of that country, the conditions of the same licenses and the precedent of previous federal governments that had supported and renewed such licenses over five decades. In addition, it is consistent with the policy of seeking the safe and responsible development of the great natural resources of the United States.
Caval’s Pain
Luksic’s ties to the presidential families have brought more than a headache to the tycoon. In Chile, the entrepreneur also faced questions in the wake of the Caval case. At the height of the scandal boom, information emerged for meetings between Luksic and the daughter-in-law of former President Michelle Bachelet, Natalia Compagnon. In these meetings, even there was a loan that the Banco de Chile, owned by Luksic, would have provided to Compagnon, to buy the land in Machalí through his company Caval.
In 2017, Luksic also denied this via Twitter: “How long with the myth!! I didn’t give away a credit, I didn’t vote this Gob and the president is not my friend. This is the Gob that most chose.”
Internationally, in 2018, Luksic’s closeness to Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic was revealed. This after it was known that the management was one of the beneficiaries of the Luksic Scholarship to study at Harvard University.
Through his favorite social network, Luksic commented on the information that labeled him – ironically – as “owner of Croatia”: “As a family we are proud to have supported the studies of more than 1,100 people from Chile, China and Croacia in universities in the US, China, Chile and UK over the last 16 years and we will continue to do so pq believe in the great contribution that is the development education of a country,” he said at the time.

Original source in Spanish