“I love your country and I would love to see it succeed”, President Donald Trump said as he listed off “insane” energy and mass migration policies presently being forced on the United Kingdom.
Britain is being “invaded” by mass migration, crushed by the highest energy prices in the world, and is failing to honour its alliances, U.S. President Donald Trump said as he reflected on the “sad” state of a country he said he loved and wants to see do well.
The remarks, to Britain’s Sky News broadcaster, are just the latest instance of the President laying out his very clear affection for the United Kingdom, the country of birth of his mother, Mary MacLeod but also deep disappointment that the nation’s government is letting both itself and its American allies down. Once again President Trump said that he liked Britain’s Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on a personal level, but that he was deeply inadequate as an actual leader, with the President stating in the interview that “tragic” mistakes were being made”.
Per a transcript provided of the telephone interview, President Trump said:
You see, your energy prices are the highest in the world. And I think he’s made a tragic mistake on immigration… Energy is causing them problems because, think of it, they won’t use the North Sea, and yet they buy a lot of their energy from Norway, which uses the North Sea, and they pay double the price.
What’s going on there? See, I love that country. I love your country and I would love to see it succeed. But if you have bad immigration policies and bad energy policies, you have the worst of both. You can’t succeed, not possible.
The United States has repeatedly called on the United Kingdom to step up to its longstanding military role in protecting freedom of navigation in the world’s strategic waterways including the Strait of Hormuz. While Prime Minister Starmer has insisted he is refusing to get involved on point of principle — already a massive snub to President Trump — it is becoming ever-clearer that Britain has been so demilitarised by decades of cuts, even if the government wanted to get involved in the Persian Gulf it simply lacks the equipment to contribute.
On the strained “special relationship”, a key feature of the global system since the Second World War where the United Kingdom was an important strategic ally of the U.S. in foreign policy, defence, and particularly in intelligence work, President Trump said: “How is the relationship? It’s the relationship where: when we asked them for help, they were not there. When we needed them, they were not there. When we didn’t need them, they were not there. And they still aren’t there… it’s been better, but it’s sad.”
On that disappointment Trump has now long articulated he feels in Britain, to whom he evidently feels he has done well but received no consideration in return, the President turned to the tariff-busting preferential trade deal he signed with London and clearly indicated it may now be at risk thanks to London’s persistent snubs. He said: “we gave them a good trade deal. Better than I had to. Which can always be changed. But we gave them a trade deal that was very good because they’re having a lot of problems”.
Sky News’s interviewer attempted to correct or question Trump during the interview, questioning whether it was any of his business how Britain governed himself, and incredibly even challenging whether his observation that Britain is experiencing massive levels of mass migration is technically correct. The U.S. President reflected that while it is certainly Britain’s business, nevertheless people keep asking for his opinion on the matter — such as Sky News had done only moments before — and so he had to keep on opining on the matter.
Britain’s migration policy is “insane”, he said, adding: “They’re destroying… your country is being invaded… By illegal immigrants from all over the world, including those from prisons, drug dealers, people from mental institutions. Your country is being invaded.”
President Trump also spoke of the forthcoming visit of King Charles III of the United Kingdom for a reciprocal State Visit to Washington D.C. from April 27th, observing that he considered his deep friendship with Charles and his late mother Elizabeth II to be totally separate from the failures of the British government of Sir Keir, and saying he was very much looking forward to the visit. King Charles is “a great gentleman, a friend of mine. He’s a fantastic person… I’ve known the King for a long time, and he’s not involved in that process”, Trump said, while also suggesting “it’s possible. Very possible” that an Iran peace deal would be signed before the King’s arrival.
While President Trump, as he noted, is frequently drawn into discussing the massive — and apparently easily rectified, should any effort be applied — failures of the British government, and discussions of its disarmament and defacto withdrawal from its military obligations have loomed large in recent weeks, actually his most longstanding articulated concerns about the country’s energy policy.
As reported he called on the British government to take advantage of the considerable wealth of untapped energy underground across the country this week, while calling out the country’s suicidal dash for renewable energy, no matter the cost. President Trump said: “Europe is desperate for Energy, and yet the United Kingdom refuses to open North Sea Oil, one of the greatest fields in the World. Tragic”. But these concerns go back years, and Trump expressed concern about the damage Britain was doing to itself with the pivot to wind power long before he became President for the first time in 2016.