Donald Trump said international investors no longer see Scotland as a secure place to invest because First Minister Alex Salmond is “single handedly destroying” Scotland’s economy with his policy of building thousands of wind turbines.

A poll in a Sunday newspaper showed that 83 percent of Scots regarded wind farms as a “blot” on the landscape, Trump said in a letter to Salmond that was also e-mailed to Bloomberg.

Scotland could never become independent under Salmond’s leadership because wind turbines would destroy the tourism industry and the country couldn’t afford the subsidies, said Trump. The New York entrepreneur has put building a hotel and housing at his golf resort in Aberdeenshire on hold because of plans to build an offshore wind farm nearby.

To contact the reporter on this story: Peter Woodifield in Edinburgh at pwoodifield@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tim Farrand at tfarrand@bloomberg.net