During President Trump’s four-day visit to Scotland, he repeatedly attacked wind power and pushed Britain to drill more oil, calling the North Sea a “treasure chest” that Britain was missing out on because taxes were too high.
U.K. government ministers have “essentially told drillers and oil companies that, ‘we don’t want you.’” he wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday. “Incentivize the drillers, FAST. A VAST FORTUNE TO BE MADE for the UK, and far lower energy costs for the people!”
Oil output from the North Sea has been in steep decline over recent decades, and production is expected to continue to drop. But it’s still a significant source of energy and jobs for Britain and has become a political lightning rod for Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Mr. Trump’s remarks came as he opened a new golf course at his resort in Aberdeenshire, a hub for oil production in the North Sea.
Britain’s tax on oil companies is one of the highest rates globally.
While the previous Conservative government promised to “max out” North Sea oil and gas production, Mr. Starmer’s Labour government campaigned on a pledge to invest in clean energy, including wind and nuclear power. The world has reached record levels of heat, and scientists say this is driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels.
Mr. Starmer increased the tax rate on profits from oil and gas extraction to 78 percent — one of the highest rates globally — after he took office. But taxes had increased significantly under the previous Conservative government, when oil prices surged after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As oil prices have fallen, other countries in Europe have reduced their taxes on oil companies, but Britain has not.
Relative to tax rates in countries with mature oil basins in the world, Britain’s is “very high,” said Gail Anderson, the research director for North Sea Upstream at Wood Mackenzie, an energy consulting firm.
“The way that the U.K. tax rate is today, I would say, is an anomaly,” Ms. Anderson said. Companies have also been spooked, she added, because of uncertainty about future British government energy policy. Still, any production would be relatively incremental and would not reduce energy prices, she said.
Mr. Starmer faces pressure from Nigel Farage, the right-wing populist leader of Reform U.K., Britain’s anti-immigration party, and a longtime ally of Mr. Trump. Reform, which wants to scrap Britain’s target of net zero emissions by 2050, won 14 percent of the vote in last year’s general election and has recently surged in opinion polls.
North Sea oil production is in steep decline.
From the mid-2000s, oil and gas production in the North Sea has fallen significantly. By 2024, Britain’s oil output had diminished to 653,000 barrels a day, from more than one million five years ago, according to the Statistical Review of World Energy.
The British government has said it is essential that the energy sector invests in wind and other forms of renewable energy — both to meet environmental goals and to replace the jobs lost from declining oil production.
Under Mr. Starmer’s plan, emissions are expected to decrease 66 percent by 2035, according to a report published in February by Wood Mackenzie. Fossil fuels accounted for 38 percent of power supply last year, and that is expected to decline to 19 percent by 2030. Wind power is expected to represent more than half of supply by 2030, according to Wood Mackenzie.
Mr. Trump has long criticized wind energy.
Mr. Trump has for many years expressed dissatisfaction with wind turbines, which he has said would mar the view from one of his Scottish golf courses. A decade ago, Britain’s highest court unanimously rejected Mr. Trump’s attempt to block the construction of a wind farm near his luxury resort, Trump International Golf Links, which is a few miles north of Aberdeen.
On Monday in Scotland, Mr. Trump said that wind turbines were “ugly monsters all over the place” and were the most expensive form of energy. “It destroys the beauty of your fields, your plains and your waterways,” he said to Mr. Starmer.
In response, the prime minister said that “oil and gas is going to be with us for a very long time,” while adding that Britain is also focused on wind, solar and nuclear power.
Tessa Khan, the founder of Uplift, an environmental group, said Mr. Trump’s demand for more drilling in the North Sea was a fantasy. A court in January ruled in favor of Uplift and Greenpeace’s lawsuit to block oil and gas production at two large project sites in British waters.
“Characterizing it as a ‘treasure chest’ doesn’t recognize that this has been a mature basin that has been in decline for decades,” she said.
Jenny Gross is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news and other topics.
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