LONDON, Sept 3 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said Britain was “on the edge of disaster,” voicing concerns in an interview with GB News about the country’s high energy costs, net zero policies and the impact of mass migration.
Relations between Britain and Trump’s United States have been turbulent in recent years, deteriorating from the highs of a pomp-laden state visit to London in 2025 into heavy criticism on a range of domestic and foreign policy areas.
Speaking on Thursday, Trump repeated his admiration and affection for King Charles and love of Britain as a country, but said Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government had serious problems to overcome.
“Your country’s in trouble. You’re on the edge of disaster,” he said. “You have a tremendous immigration problem, and you have a tremendous energy problem. Your energy is three, four times higher than it should be.”
Trump, who calls climate change a hoax, has previously criticised Britain’s shift away from fossil fuels and repeatedly called on successive leaders to exploit its North Sea oil and gas reserves.
Burnham is weighing whether to permit two large North Sea developments to go ahead, promising a pragmatic approach to energy transition but repeating his government’s belief in the need to shift to clean sources of electricity.
Trump also said immigration was changing the face of Britain.
“If you don’t stop people pouring into your country from all over the world, you’re not going to have a country left,” he said.
Concerns about immigration, centred on people arriving illegally on small boats from continental Europe, are among the most important issues for many British voters and have fuelled a surge in popularity for Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform party.
Burnham’s government has repeated pledges made by his predecessor Keir Starmer to stop such crossings. Earlier this week, it said they had fallen sharply and that work targeting launches and the criminal gangs behind them was bearing fruit.
(Reporting by Sam Tabahriti; Writing by William James; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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