‘A very big mistake’: Trump tears into the U.K. over the most peculiar reason

Donald Trump pulled a page out of Don Quixote and is now tilting at windmills.

“Get rid of windmills,” wrote Trump on Truth Social. He’s taken particular umbrage at the green energy source after the Texas based oil company Apache complained about the United Kingdom’s “windfall tax,” which lays an extra tax on companies harvesting U.K. oil and gas. “The U.K. is making a very big mistake,” Trump wrote, “open up the North Sea.” Trump also included a link to an article published by The Hill which covers Apache’s decision to pull out of North Sea drilling in response to what they believed was unfair taxation.

Why windmills? The North Sea is home to the largest offshore wind farm in the world, which the U.K. uses to generate a significant amount of clean energy. Donald Trump isn’t a fan of windmills, and has made his opinion known. “I’ve never understood wind” waxed Trump during a speech in his first term of office – airing out his distaste for wind energy in a bizarre rant. He also made the claim that wind energy “kills all the birds” during a presidential debate with Joe Biden. Windmills are responsible for less than  0.02% of all bird deaths in North America, ranking far below cats, windows, and vehicles.

Trump’s disdain for windmills likely comes from a place far more personal to the president-elect than animal welfare. Trump once saw one of his lawsuits thrown out by Britain’s highest court after he unsuccessfully sued to stop the construction of a wind farm near a luxury golf course in Scotland. In response, Trump called the Scottish government “”foolish, small minded and parochial,” foreign affairs spokesman Alex Salmond called Trump “three times a loser” in return.

The windfall tax levied against foreign oil companies is all part of a Labor Party bid to reduce fossil fuel consumption across the U.K. and create greener energy practices world wide. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s has pledged to bolster clean energy efforts in the nation, that British government intends to quadruple its offshore wind energy production by 2030 in order to reduce its carbon footprint and improve air. The government also intends to raise the windfall tax from 35% to 38% and put the additional profits towards furthering green energy production.

Keir Starmer and Donald Trump are diametrically opposed when it comes to clean energy in their respective administrations. While campaigning for the presidency in 2024, Trump adopted the slogan “Drill, Baby, Drill” in order to let his voters know where he stands on fossil fuel production. Windmills will be the target of Trump’s day one agenda in office, and he has said that he intends to issue an executive order to end offshore wind immediately. “Starting on Day 1, I will approve new drilling, new pipelines, new refiners, new power plants, new reactors, and we will slash the red tape,” said Trump in a speech in Michigan while on the campaign trail.

The United States is already the world’s largest crude oil producer, surpassing both Russia and Saudi Arabia and pumping out 12.9 million barrels a day in 2023. And yet, Donald Trump wants to increase production – and he repeatedly attempted to bash his political opponents over the head with this viewpoint. He criticized Kamala Harris for her accepting position on green energy during the presidential debates, and took another shot at offshore windmills mid-campaign. This time, he said that they make whales “batty,” but when it comes to the true motivation behind his energy policies, the safety of whales and birds are likely the last thing on his mind.