He praised the gas and demanded the windmills come down

There is a particular persistence in a grudge held for more than a decade, a grievance that outlasts court rulings and changes in government and the ordinary passage of time. For President Donald Trump, the wind turbines off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland, have been that grudge since 2011, when plans were finalized for an eleven-turbine demonstration project in Aberdeen Bay, visible from the links of his Trump International Golf Links. He fought the project, lost in the U.K. Supreme Court in 2015, and was ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal fees . The turbines were installed and operational by 2018.

This week, Trump found a new occasion to revisit the fight. On Wednesday, the U.K. government approved drilling at the Jackdaw gas field, a North Sea reserve about 150 miles east of Aberdeen that is expected to supply roughly six percent of domestic gas production at peak capacity . Trump praised the decision on Truth Social as "Great news for the wealth and prosperity of the United Kingdom." Then he added, in capitals: "TAKE DOWN THE COSTLY AND RIDICULOUS WINDMILLS!" .

The juxtaposition is telling. The Jackdaw approval represents a victory for the argument Trump has pressed for years—that European net-zero mandates are economically unsustainable and that fossil fuel reserves should be exploited rather than left in the ground. The U.K. government's decision, framed as a measure to reduce reliance on foreign energy threatened by the wars in Iran and Ukraine, aligns with the "drill, baby, drill" agenda Trump has championed . But the wind turbines remain, and so does the irritation they cause him.

The turbines are not merely a visual affront to Trump's property. They have become a symbol of a broader conflict between renewable energy and the fossil fuel interests he has consistently defended. The Jackdaw field, an ultra-high-pressure, high-temperature gas and condensate reserve, is one of the largest undeveloped gas reserves in the U.K. Continental Shelf. Shell has been seeking approval since 2021, and environmental groups have opposed it on climate grounds . The approval is a significant policy win for the industry and for the argument that energy security requires continued extraction.

For Trump, the two issues are linked by more than geography. The same Scottish coastline that hosts his golf resort also hosts the turbines he despises and sits near the gas field he now celebrates. His post was a single sentence of praise followed by a demand, a reminder that his approach to energy policy has always been personal as well as political. The windmills, as he calls them, are not an abstraction. They are what he sees when he looks out from his course.

There is a broader question here about how energy transitions actually happen. The U.K. has committed to net zero, yet it has approved a new gas field. It has built offshore wind, yet a former American president demands its removal. These contradictions are not unique to Scotland. They are the ordinary friction of a world trying to move away from fossil fuels while still depending on them, and of leaders who see the landscape through the lens of their own investments.

For now, the Jackdaw approval will proceed, and the gas will flow later this year. The turbines will continue to turn. And Trump will continue to demand their removal, as he has for fifteen years, from a golf course that was built to be a refuge from the ordinary world but has never quite escaped it.

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