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Donald Trump has criticized the UK's plan to withdraw from North Sea oil and gas production, in the latest salvo against Sir Keir Starmer's government in the incoming US administration.
The president-elect said that the UK “made a very big mistake”, adding that it should “open the North Sea” and “Abandon the Windmills”, in his post on the Truth Social media site.
It is not clear what prompted the post, which included a link to an article from November in which APA Corporation, which owns the US oil company Apache, said it would end its North Sea operations by 2029 warning that high taxes and environmental laws would make them “bankrupt.”.
Apache itself stopped drilling in the North Sea in June 2023, before the Starmer government took office in July last year.
Trump's digital intervention puts him directly at odds with one of the Labor government's foundation policies, to move the UK away from fossil fuels in the coming years.
The post reflects the incoming US president's willingness to test the domestic policies of other nations that was a hallmark of his first term in office, something that could further strain relations with the UK.
His intervention also follows several criticisms of Starmer's government by Elon Musk, the head of Tesla and the tech billionaire nominated by Trump to lead the new waste management department.
The positions from both men are likely to fuel concerns within the UK about potentially strained US-UK relations if Trump is elected this month for a second term.
Starmer appointed former Labor minister Lord Peter Mandelson as the new ambassador to Washington, while the prime minister and David Lammy, the foreign secretary, worked to try to build relations with Trump and his allies.
Political consensus on in the UK on tackling climate change has split, with the Conservative party – which announced it has pledged to set 2050 Net Zero goals under Theresa May – aligning itself closely with Trump's pro-fossil fuel stand.
The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, who describes himself as a “skeptic”, recently met with the deputy president-elect JD Vance, while Musk urged people to vote for Nigel Farage's Reform UK party, which he said would cancel the UK's zero emissions. the target.
Trump wants to increase oil and gas drilling in the US, and has said he will stop President Joe Biden's funding package for the Green Inflation Reduction Act.
His campaign has also said he plans to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. He did so at the end of his first term in office in 2020, although the US rejoined months later under Biden.
Starmer's government has made divesting from oil and gas high on its agenda, citing the damaging impact of fossil fuel burning on the climate.
It plans to stop issuing North Sea licenses for new oil and gas exploration and to raise tax rates on oil and gas producers.
Starmer's administration has instead put a greater emphasis on renewable energy such as wind turbines and solar farms. It wants to phase out the electricity system by 2030, as one step towards the UK-wide, legally binding goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions across the economy to zero by 2050.
However some critics have questioned the wisdom of reducing domestic oil and gas production when both are still needed for the next 25 years, albeit in declining volumes, as the UK moves towards its 2050 target.
Downing Street declined to comment on Friday, but government officials highlighted Labour's longstanding position on the energy policy debate.