Washington (CNN) A Chilean mining company whose owner has business ties to President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner was able to clear significant "roadblocks" in the early days of the Trump administration in order to reverse Obama-era restrictions that prevented it from mining near protected land in Minnesota, The New York Times reported Monday.

The Times, citing government emails and calendars it reviewed, said the Trump administration worked in early 2017 with the mining company, Antofagasta, in order to clear certain hurdles so the company could operate a copper mine near the Boundary Waters, "a vast landscape of federally protected lakes and forests along (Minnesota's) border with Canada."

According to the paper, the newly granted access to the mines has drawn criticism "because of an unusual connection" between Andrónico Luksic, whose family owns the mining company, and Trump and Kushner, who serve as senior advisers to the President and rent their Washington, DC, home from Luksic for $15,000 a month.

Rodrigo Terré, the chairman of Luksic's family investment office, which handled the purchase of the home that was later rented to the couple, told the Times that both sides knew the identities of the other before the rental deal was completed. The paper said the couple "had decided to lease the home before knowing the landlord's identity," according to Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, though Mirijanian did not respond to the Times' questions about whether or not they knew Luksic's identity before signing the lease.

The paper noted that Luksic said in a March 2017 tweet that he doesn't know Trump "or any member of his family, and only met Mr. Trump briefly at a New England Patriots football game years ago."

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