The president has long voiced his opposition to turbines and been a stern critic of Britain’s energy stance
Countries that subsidise wind power like the UK are “stupid”, Donald Trump has said, as he announced nearly 700 million dollars (£521 million) of support for the US coal industry.
The president argued many successful nations, such as China, use the fossil fuel, while “the real great failures” had adopted the renewable energy source.
Mr Trump has long voiced his opposition to wind turbines, particularly those offshore, witnessed by his unsuccessful legal battle with the Scottish Government to stop a development visible from his Aberdeenshire golf course.
The president has previously accused Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of “windmilling the country to death” and warned that he was “getting killed on energy” by not boosting oil extraction in the North Sea.
In recent months, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband vowed to “double down not back down” on the shift to clean power, including speeding up the rollout of renewables and electrifying heating and transport to get homes and businesses off fossil fuels.
Home-grown energy would insulate the UK from fuel shocks caused by conflicts such as Iran, he argued.
There have been calls from the Tories and Reform UK to increase supplies of oil and gas from the North Sea, and to bring down bills by scrapping measures to help the UK shift to a “net-zero” clean economy, such as new renewables and heat pump subsidies.
The plans unveiled by Mr Trump would see the administration use Cold War-era emergency powers to support 13 coal-fired power plants and help build new facilities in Alaska and West Virginia.
Cash would also be made available to help restart a closed plant in Maryland and support the building of a long-delayed coal export terminal in California.
Speaking in the White House, Mr Trump said: “So today we’re taking historic action to bring down the price of energy and the cost of living for all Americans with the power of clean, beautiful coal.
“If you look at China, if you look at so many of the successful countries, they’re using coal.
“If you look at some of the real great failures, countries, they’re using wind.
“Just keeps blowing, blowing, blowing, and puts you right out of business.
“Very expensive, most expensive energy there is.
“So wind is not working very well, but they keep it going because people get subsidies by countries that are stupid.”
He added: “Wind is the most expensive, it’s the worst, it causes tremendous problems.
“It kills millions and millions of birds a year. Nobody mentions that.”
He went on: “You know if you kill a bald eagle they put you in jail for like four years or something and yet windmills knock them out of the air all the time, nothing happens. It’s disgraceful. So we’re into energy that really works and works powerfully.”
