Claim:
Scotland approved the construction of 300 wind turbines off the coast of Trump’s golf course days after he complained about the nation’s wind farms and called them ugly.
Rating:
What’s True
A few days after Trump’s trip to the nation, Scotland’s government approved an offshore wind farm project that will include more than 300 turbines.
What’s False
The claim that the wind farm will be off the coast of Trump’s golf course was a slight exaggeration, as it’s unlikely it would even be visible from his golf course. Additionally, there was no evidence the project’s approval was related to Trump’s visit.
U.S. President Donald Trump visited Scotland in July 2025 to play golf at one of his golf courses and for trade talks with leaders of the United Kingdom and the European Union. During his trip, Trump made many complaints about wind turbines.
Over the next week, several Facebook posts (archived, archived, archived) with tens of thousands of reactions each claimed that Scotland announced it was building more wind turbines off the coast of Trump’s golf course a few days after he left the country.
“Trump went to Scotland and ranted about windmills, so Scotland decided to build 300 more off the shore of Trump’s new golf course,” said one of the posts, from the Facebook page Occupy Democrats.
While it is true that Scotland approved the creation of a new wind farm of more than 300 wind turbines days after Trump’s visit, the planned development wasn’t right “off the shore of Trump’s new golf course.” Additionally, Scotland’s green light for the project didn’t appear to be related to Trump’s visit.
On July 31, 2025, a few days after Trump left the country, the Scottish government granted consent for the Berwick Bank offshore wind farm. As planned, Berwick Bank would be one of the largest offshore wind farms in the world, according to SSE Renewables, the company behind the project. SSE Renewables said the wind farm could include up to 307 turbines.
The golf course Trump opened while in Scotland is located on the same property as his preexisting golf course just north of Aberdeen. The planned location of Berwick Bank is off the coast of Dunbar, which is about 80 miles south of Aberdeen and Trump’s golf course.
Maps from Offshore Wind Scotland and Crown Estate Scotland marking the locations of all of Scotland’s current and planned offshore wind projects showed that Berwick Bank was farther from Trump’s golf course than several other offshore wind farms.
Two of the already-operational wind farms closest to Trump’s golf course were the Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm, which includes 11 turbines, and the Kincardine Offshore Wind Farm, which has five turbines. Aberdeen is about four miles off the coast of Trump’s course, while Kincardine is roughly 13 miles from it.
A photo album of the new golf course on the Trump International Scotland website included several photos with wind turbines visible. There were no more than 11 wind turbines visible in any one photo, suggesting that the more distant of the two farms, Kincardine, was not visible from Trump’s golf course. Kincardine is much closer to Trump’s golf course than Berwick Bank’s planned location.
Trump fought a legal battle in an attempt to stop the Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm’s construction. The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled against him in 2015, allowing the wind farm’s construction to continue. It began generating power in 2018.
Berwick Bank has been in development for years; the oldest documents for the project available on the Scottish government’s website date to September 2020.
The Scottish government’s July 31 consent decision noted on Page 63 that multiple government parties involved in the consent decision notified one another of their plans to approve Berwick Bank on June 27 and July 21. Trump didn’t arrive in Scotland until July 25, after those notifications.
Offshore Wind Scotland noted SSE Renewables still needed to take multiple steps before beginning construction on the project. The company will have to secure a contract under U.K. law, reach a final investment decision and develop a plan on reducing the effect of the wind farm on seabirds.
