President Donald Trump has turned his long‑running skepticism of renewable power into a defining feature of his energy agenda, casting wind turbines as a bad bet for the country. In recent remarks, he sharpened that critique with colorful language, deriding wind energy and boasting that his administration has not approved new projects while moving aggressively to halt those already underway. I see those comments not as an offhand insult, but as the clearest expression yet of a policy campaign that reaches from the White House podium to courtrooms and coastal construction sites.
Behind the rhetoric is a coordinated effort to slow or stop wind development on federal lands and waters, reshape the economics of clean power, and reframe turbines as a threat to national security and local communities. The result is a clash between a president who brands wind as a losing technology and an industry that, by the government’s own data, has become a major source of U.S. electricity and jobs.
From rally lines to governing doctrine
Trump’s language about wind has grown more caustic as his policies have hardened. In public appearances he has mocked what he calls “windmills,” treating modern turbines as eyesores and unreliable machines, and he has bragged that his administration has not approved “one windmill” since he took office. In those same remarks, he has celebrated his broader opposition to wind and solar, presenting it as a point of pride rather than a reluctant trade‑off, even as land‑based turbines already produce a significant share of U.S. power according to the Energy Department, as noted in one detailed account.
That posture is not confined to a single speech. In coverage of his recent comments, reporters have highlighted how Trump has repeatedly described wind energy in disparaging terms and vowed to “continue his” resistance to new projects, framing turbines as a kind of industrial blight that leaves behind what he characterizes as a junkyard of steel. Those same reports note that his administration has paired the rhetoric with concrete directives that halt construction and approvals, underscoring that the language about “losers” is meant to justify a governing strategy, not just entertain a crowd, as reflected in multiple reports and follow‑up coverage.
A moratorium that froze the offshore build‑out
The most sweeping expression of that hostility arrived when Trump signed an order titled Trump Orders Moratorium on Federal Actions for Wind Projects and Withdrawal of New or Renewed Wind Leases in Outer Con. On January 20, 2025, that directive instructed agencies to halt Federal Actions for Wind Projects and Withdrawal of New and Renewed Wind Leases on the Offshore Continental Shelf, effectively slamming the brakes on a pipeline of offshore proposals. As I read it, the order translated Trump’s disdainful language about turbines into a formal presumption against wind in federal waters, treating new leases as a problem to be eliminated rather than a resource to be managed.
That moratorium set the stage for a broader freeze on offshore development. By early 2026, President Donald Trump’s administration had ordered a halt to multiple projects, prompting lawsuits from states and developers who argued that the sudden stoppage threatened billions in investment and long‑planned construction schedules. Legal challenges have targeted the offshore wind project freeze and pressed the administration to explain why work should not resume by a specific January deadline, highlighting how the White House’s rhetorical war on “windmills” has become a high‑stakes legal fight over the future of coastal energy infrastructure, as detailed in recent court filings.
National security as a new rationale
In court, the administration has leaned on national security to defend its actions. The Interior Department has argued that its decision to halt construction of the Revolution Wind project off the coast was necessary to address classified concerns, telling a federal judge that the pause was imposed to allow time to study and mitigate those risks. That explanation, presented in a filing summarized in GREENWIRE, marks a shift from Trump’s usual complaints about aesthetics or cost, recasting turbines as potential vulnerabilities in a contested offshore environment.
Offshore energy regulators have gone further by issuing a 90‑day construction pause on Revolution Wind and four other projects, a move that has immediate consequences for workers, supply chains, and state climate plans. In the same litigation, Niina H. has been identified in connection with the case in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, underscoring how the dispute has drawn in a wide cast of federal and private actors. By invoking a 90‑day timeout on Revolution Wind and related developments, the administration is testing whether national security language can sustain a long‑term slowdown of offshore wind, as described in the offshore case summary.
A broader campaign against renewables
Trump’s attacks on wind are part of a wider pattern that also targets solar. In Aug 2025, President Donald Trump said the United States would not approve solar or wind power projects, a sweeping declaration that signaled a federal retreat from both technologies at once. He framed that stance as a correction to what he sees as past policy mistakes, even as critics warned that refusing to approve new projects would heighten concerns about energy reliability and investment certainty, according to Aug reporting.
Earlier, in Jul 2025, Trump signed a sweeping package known as President Signs the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Analysts have noted that the law Created a competitive imbalance in the technology marketplace by tilting tax and regulatory advantages away from wind and solar energy facilities and toward fossil fuel producers. In my view, that legislative move shows how the administration has tried to make renewables less attractive not only through permitting decisions but also through the underlying economics, as laid out in a Jul policy timeline.
Economic fallout and industry pushback
The human and economic stakes of this campaign are significant. Doug Molof, in an Introduction and summary of federal actions, has argued that Attacks on the wind power industry endanger tens of thousands of jobs by blocking projects that would otherwise move forward before they lose eligibility for tax credits. That analysis connects the dots between high‑level decisions in Washington and layoffs or missed hiring in communities that had banked on turbine manufacturing, construction, and maintenance work.
Environmental advocates have raised similar alarms. In Aug 2025, Environmental groups warned that stop work orders on renewable projects would raise consumer prices and risk energy shortages, especially as older fossil fuel plants retire. They pointed to President Trump, who dismisses climate concerns and has repeatedly questioned the value of clean energy even as other countries race to capture the industries of the future, according to one Environmental analysis. From my perspective, those warnings highlight a core tension: Trump portrays wind as a drag on the economy, while critics argue that his policies are the ones putting jobs and grid stability at risk.
Global context, fact‑checking, and the politics of “losers”
Trump’s rhetoric has also drawn scrutiny when it strays from basic facts. In one widely shared clip from Sep 2025, he pivoted from attacking renewables to discussing border security and drugs, claiming that people last year to drugs 300,000 fentinol and other drugs and boasting that each boat that “we sink” prevents deaths, a statement captured in a Sep video. The jumble of statistics and grievances in that appearance mirrors how he often folds wind into a broader narrative of national decline, even when the specific numbers he cites invite skepticism.
Fact‑checkers have pushed back on some of his most sweeping claims about other countries. In coverage of a recent speech, reporters noted that Trump Claims China Doesn, Have Any Windmills, But It Has the Most In the World, pointing out that China actually led the globe in installed wind capacity in the first half of 2025. That contradiction, highlighted by writer Willa Pope Robbins in a Trump Claims China analysis, undercuts the idea that wind is a “loser” technology on the world stage.
Industry and foreign leaders have not stayed silent. During a trip to Scotland in Jul 2025, Trump told Europe to “stop the windmills,” a line that landed awkwardly in a region that has invested heavily in offshore turbines and sees them as central to its energy security. Around the same time, his administration paused leases for some offshore wind projects on national security grounds, even as global installations continued to grow worldwide despite political challenges, according to Dec reporting. Offshore developers have since gone to court to challenge Trump’s anti‑wind orders, arguing that the president’s vow to keep blocking projects, punctuated by his line that “They’re losers,” has no basis in the actual performance or global trajectory of the technology, as described in one Trump focused account.
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