U.S. President Donald Trump blasted Europe’s ongoing migrant crisis and its political leaders for doing nothing to stem it, as he revealed his recent discussion with new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham touched both on border control and the UK’s botched energy policy.
President Trump took questions in the Oval Office on Wednesday evening as he announced ambitious plans to rebuild Washington Dulles airport — presently “one of the worst airports anywhere in the world” — and when asked about his conversations with Britain’s newly appointed Prime Minister Andy Burnham, expressed his concern about the UK government’s total resistance to good advice on some key policy areas. Trump and several of his most senior colleagues have repeatedly warned Britain and Europe about its damaging approach to open borders and he touched upon this again, stating he had mentioned “briefly” the importance of border control on a call with Burnham.
The United Kingdom has a “huge immigration problem”, President Trump said, and referring to ongoing decline in the government’s ability to manage the situation he added that there are “people coming from all over the world and just camping out in your country”.
This lackadaisical state approach to border control contrasts harshly with the United States, President Trump said, given the “tough” approach to migration which is already seeing results. The President continued: “Our borders are very strong and your borders are very weak, he’s got that problem”.
Whether it is something Prime Minister Burnham intends to tackle or not — and given he was appointed to the leadership role through an internal party coup, meaning there was no national election campaign meaning Burnham never had to trade promises of border control with the public for votes, and his Labour Party’s absolute love of open borders in general, it seems unlikely — it is also a situation he inherited and one that exists across many European states. Responding to a British jounralist in the Oval Office who prompted Trump on Burnham having skirted the issue of border control in the course of his premiership so far, the President said “he’s going to have to mention it because it’s killing your country” and reflected of his predecessor in Downing Street: “I know Starmer did very little about it”.
Of the wider European problem, President Trump went on: “they’re coming from all over the world, they’re coming from Africa, they’re coming from South America, they’re coming from different parts of Asia. And they’re invading Europe, they’re invading Europe, it’s an invasion. And the UK is a prime suspect.”
Mass migration is not the only policy area that well-wishing friends of Britain abroad look upon with confusion. After years of botched energy policy and a dash to net-zero the United Kingdom suffers some of the highest electricity prices in the world, both for consumers and industrial customers, driving both the cost of living crisis and deindustrialisation of the country. The new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has made re-industrialising Britain one of his most visible policy promises, and President Trump revealed the men also discussed the important role abundant, cheap energy plays in that.
Opening up the North Sea oil and gas field to new exploration and drilling would make the United Kingdom very wealthy if done well, Trump assured. Noting positively that Prime Minister Burnham had said he would look into this, the President expressed caution on leaping to believe British leaders when they say they are willing to consider a turn away from net zero, and added “let’s see if it happens”.
For now, the United Kingdom refuses to drill its own oil and gas for national self-image reasons, but still imports these fuels from abroad to keep the lights on, and often at a steep premium. Remarkably, much of this enmergy is bought from Norway, which shares the North Sea basin with the United Kingdom in their territorial waters, meaning Britain pays a third party a higher cost to import energy it could simply drill and use itself. President Trump said:
You buy a lot of your energy from the North Sea, you buy from Norway, and Norway gets it from the North Sea. And Norway’s got trillions of dollars in the bank. It sells its oil from the North Sea, but Scotland has a better part of the North Sea… you’ve got areas of the North Sea that haven’t even been explored yet. You have one of the most valuable oil finds anywhere in the world, and if the United Kingdom would use it they would be a wealthy country again.
And do you know what? I could not get Starmer to use it. It was incredible… You have the finest oil, it’s the best oil anywhere in the planet, and it’s unbelievable you don’t have to pay Norway triple what it costs to take out, you have your own oil and gas. If you use the North Sea, the UK will be a really rich country.