While extractivism is usually analyzed in the Global South, to broaden understanding of mining structural dynamics, we propose to study its implementation in a developed country, and especially in the one who dominated the mining industry for a long time: the United States. Indeed, since the beginning of the 20th century, the state of Arizona has been one of the world’s leading copper producing regions. This region of the western United States has seen the emergence of particular modes of production, labor organization, new technologies and has been confronted earlier than elsewhere to new environmental standards. This article questions how the analysis of a model set up in a rich and developed country makes it possible to rethink the theories on extractivism that have been formulated so far from the South. By studying the similarities, the differences and the links between South American and North American mining extractivism, it appears that Arizona can be considered as a real place of experimentation for mining activities.