President Donald Trump spent part of his weekend in Scotland reviving his old grievances against wind power, even claiming at one point that it was “killing” Americans.
During a meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Trump abruptly detoured from immigration to wind turbines.
“And the other thing I say to Europe: We will not allow a windmill to be built in the United States,” Trump said. “They’re killing us.”
He added:
“They’re killing the beauty of our scenery, our valleys, our beautiful plains ― and I’m not talking about airplanes. I’m talking about beautiful plains, beautiful areas in the United States, and you look up and you see windmills all over the place. It’s a horrible thing. It’s the most expensive form of energy. It’s no good. They’re made in China, almost all of them.”
He complained that wind turbines “rust and rot in eight years” and then can’t be “buried” because they will harm the soil.
“The whole thing is a con job,” he said. “It’s very expensive. And in all fairness, Germany tried it and wind doesn’t work.”
Much of what the president said was wildly inaccurate: Germany gets more than a quarter of its energy from wind, turbines last about 30 years (not eight), according to the U.S Department of Energy, it’s not the most expensive form of energy, and they’re not “almost all” made in China.
Trump, who has frequently attacked renewable energy, has a special hatred of wind power that likely began some two decades ago, when an offshore wind farm was proposed near the land that would become his golf resort in Scotland.
He mentioned that on Sunday as well.
“Today I’m playing the best course I think in the world, Turnberry ― even though I own it ― it’s probably the best course in the world, right?” he said. “And I look over the horizon and I see nine windmills. ... I said, ‘Isn’t that a shame? What a shame.’”
Trump has previously taken his anti-wind stance to absurd extremes, such as in 2019, when he falsely claimed wind turbines cause cancer.
“The wind, the wind, it sounds so wonderful,” he said last year. “The wind, the wind, the wind is, the wind is bullshit, I’ll tell you.”
Trump’s critics called him out for his latest out-of-the-blue tirade against wind energy: