The President of the United States, Donald Trump, defended this Sunday that the future British government should allow extensive exploitation of North Sea oil with the arrival of Andy Burnham at Downing Street, while he criticized the "ugly" windmills installed in the waters off Aberdeen, on the Scottish coast.
"The people of Aberdeen, in Scotland, are dancing in the streets because the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has declared that he is going to fully open the immeasurable oil of the North Sea," Trump stated in a message posted on social media.
The American leader emphasized that this is one of the highest quality crudes on the planet and that "it has hundreds of years" of exploitation left. "The United Kingdom will go from being a impoverished disaster to one of the richest countries in the world," he argued.
Trump also reproached London for spending "billions on buying oil from Norway," something he considers "ridiculous" when taking into account the country's "great energy potential." "Open the oil of the North Sea. We love you, Scotland!" he concluded.
Burnham stated that he has "an open mind" on the issue of North Sea oil, despite the electoral program with which his party, the Labour Party, won the 2024 elections with an absolute majority ruling out granting new exploitation licenses. Burnham himself has assured that he will comply with the electoral program.
The official line of the Labour Party holds that increasing crude oil exploitation in the North Sea does not lower fuel prices for British consumers and that it also does not contribute to combating climate change. The Green Party thus urges Burnham not to violate one of the main electoral commitments.
The oil of the North Sea was discovered in 1965 and by the early 1980s the United Kingdom was already exporting more oil than it imported. Aberdeen then became the oil capital of Europe and around half a million jobs were generated. In 1988, the worst accident occurred on the Piper Alpha platform, where 167 people died. In the last decade, production has decreased, although new deposits continue to emerge in the area.