Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch visits the Wellsafe Protector oil rig in Aberdeen’s South Harbour, March 30, 2026 in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Paul Reid | Getty Images News | Getty Images
US President Donald Trump has renewed his criticism of Britain’s energy policy, ridiculing the ruling centre-left Labor government’s decision to ban the approval of new oil and gas fields in the North Sea.
“Europe desperately needs energy and the UK refuses to open North Sea oil, one of the world’s largest oil fields. Tragedy!!!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday.
Trump said: “Aberdeen should be booming. Norway is selling North Sea oil to the UK at twice the price. They’re making a lot of money.”
“The UK, which has a better position on the North Sea for energy purposes than Norway, should drill, baby, drill!!! It’s absolutely crazy they don’t…and we don’t need any more windmills!” he added.
His comments came as the strategically important Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed and uncertainty persists over crude supplies from the oil-rich Middle East.
Oil and gas prices have soared since the US-Israel war with Iran began in late February, in what the International Energy Agency described as “the most severe oil supply shock in history.”
The energy shock is expected to hit the UK the hardest among the world’s developed countries, according to the International Monetary Fund. In its latest World Economic Outlook, the IMF cut its UK growth forecast for this year to just 0.8% from the 1.3% expected before the start of the fighting.
President Trump’s criticism of British energy policy follows a series of personal attacks on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in recent weeks.
The US president has previously called the North Sea a “treasure chest” of oil and gas and last year told the UK government to “drill, baby, drill” to reduce energy bills.
A spokeswoman for Britain’s Department of Energy and Security and Net Zero said the government was working on cost-of-living measures, including cutting average energy bills by 117 pounds ($158.74) this month and helping to ease tensions in the Middle East.
“The lesson of yet another fossil fuel crisis is that the UK needs to get off the fossil fuel rollercoaster and start producing clean, home-grown electricity that we control,” they told CNBC in an email.
energy security
UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has previously said the Iran war has reinforced the need for the UK to accelerate the transition to clean electricity so it can “escape the grip of fossil fuel markets that we don’t control”.
Some right-wing opposition parties in Britain, particularly the Reform Party and the Conservative Party, are calling for new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea as a way to cut fuel costs.
Meanwhile, Britain’s main trade union Unite, which represents thousands of North Sea oil and gas workers, called on the government to urgently increase North Sea production. The group’s plea comes after industry group Offshore Energies UK warned that the UK needs to improve its national energy security by increasing domestic natural gas supplies.
But energy experts question whether new North Sea oil and gas licenses will help strengthen domestic energy security.
UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband arrives at Downing Street to attend a Cabinet meeting ahead of the Spring Statement in London on March 3, 2026.
Viktor Simanovich | Future Publishing | Getty Images
“The North Sea is a mature oil and gas basin in long-term decline and this is a geological reality that no political slogan can change,” said Laura Anderson, a senior researcher at the Energy and Climate Information Unit (ECIU).
Her comments came in response to proposals put forward by reformers earlier this month to maximize North Sea oil and gas production.
“Even with new licenses, overall production will continue to decline, meaning a strategy based on doubling down on oil and gas risk means chasing shrinking resources rather than planning for the future,” Anderson said.
