By Steven Cohen, Ph.D., Director of the M.S. in Sustainability Management program, School of Professional Studies
While the war in Iran disrupts the global supply of fossil fuels, President Trump continues his completely weird war on wind power in the United States. He constantly promotes fact-free arguments about the dangers of wind power and has focused his efforts on stopping offshore wind farms that require federal permits. America uses a lot of wind power, and it seems more than a little ridiculous to discourage its use. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the United States had 159,508.9 megawatts of wind capacity in January 2026. In 2025, wind produced 464.4 terawatt-hours of electricity. That is about 10.5% of America’s electricity. Most of America’s wind power is generated in the center of the country. Leading wind power states include Texas (44.0 GW), Oklahoma (13.7 GW), Iowa (13.2 GW), Kansas (9.7 GW), and Illinois (8.4 GW). With the exception of Illinois, none of these states are known for their liberal politics.
The Trump administration has used a variety of methods to discourage wind power. On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued a memorandum withdrawing all Outer Continental Shelf areas from offshore wind leasingand ordered agencies to stop issuing new or renewed approvals, permits, leases, rights-of-way, and loans for onshore and offshore wind developments. It gets even more ridiculous as the Administration has started to pay companies to abandon offshore wind development. According to Jennifer McDermott’s report on March 24, 2026, in the Associated Press:
“The Trump administration’s $1 billion payout to a French energy company to walk away from U.S. offshore wind development is a novel tactic against the industry that supporters see as creative — but opponents see as foolish and extreme. The Interior Department announced Monday that TotalEnergies agreed to what is essentially a refund of its leases for projects off the coasts of North Carolina and New York, and will invest the money in a liquefied natural gas export terminal in Texas and other fossil fuel projects instead. The department hailed it as an “innovative agreement” with the French energy giant so that the “American people will no longer pay for ideological subsidies that benefited only the unreliable and costly offshore wind industry.” The tactical shift comes after federal courts have thwarted President Donald Trump’s efforts to stop offshore wind through executive action.
Donald Trump’s hatred of wind power appears to have its origins in his effort to battle the installation of wind turbines near a golf development he built in Scotland. The degree to which his personal preferences are influencing public policy is not surprising, but it is still worthy of examination. According to Kevin Keane and Aimee Stanton of the BBC, then-real estate developer Donald Trump testified before the Scottish Parliament in 2012 opposing wind farms. In a piece filed in 2025, they reported that:
“Five years before he first became US president, … [that testimony] was one of his earliest interventions on renewable energy - but since then his opposition to them has grown to become government policy in the world's biggest economy. He was objecting to 11 turbines which were planned - and ultimately constructed - alongside his Aberdeenshire golf course…When Trump bought the Menie estate, about eight miles north of Aberdeen, in 2006, he promised to create the "world's greatest" golf course. But he soon became infuriated at plans to construct an offshore wind farm nearby, arguing that the "windmills" - as he prefers to call the structures - would ruin the view. The Aberdeen Bay Wind Farm contained the world's most powerful turbines when they were built in 2018. They generate enough electricity to supply up to 80,000 homes but the wind farm was also built as a test and demonstration facility for new technology. Trump battled the plans through the Scottish courts, then appealed to the UK's Supreme Court - but he was unable to stop the "monsters" from going ahead. It clearly left him smarting and he's not had a good word to say about wind power since.”
Over the past 14 months, the world has learned that Donald Trump’s view of how the world works and his perceptions of friends and enemies have an outsized influence on U.S. policy and the actions of the U.S. government. During his 2024 campaign for the presidency, fossil fuel interests donated heavily to his campaign, and he installed fossil fuel executives in energy policymaking positions throughout government. Given the growing need for energy, particularly for the data centers required for Artificial Intelligence, many business leaders and energy experts have called for an “all of the above” energy strategy. But Trump and his subordinates are actively opposing renewable energy. They have eliminated renewable energy and electric vehicle tax expenditures and other subsidies.
Despite the changes in federal policy, wind energy continues to grow in the United States, along with other forms of renewable energy. According to Deloitte’s Keith Adams, Kate Hardin and Shih Yu (Elsie) Hung:
“2025 has been a challenging year for renewables. The new tax law, commonly referred to as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, rolled back many clean energy tax credits and imposed new restrictions, pressuring early-stage wind and solar pipelines. Wind and solar investments in the first half of 2025 fell 18%, to nearly US$35 billion (prior to the enactment of this act), compared to the same period in 2024. Still, renewables dominated US capacity growth, accounting for 93% of additions (30.2 gigawatts) through September 2025, with solar and storage making up 83%.”
In the near term, many wind projects are nearing completion and will add to America’s wind capacity. Some offshore projects have resumed after judicial victories, and onshore projects are not always subject to the whims of Donald Trump and his functionaries. Where investors believe they will receive a reasonable return on their investment, we can expect to see new wind projects.
Nevertheless, the damage to the renewable energy industry brought by this administration is far from trivial. Much of the damage is due to the psychology of investment and fears stemming from the risk of government intervention, even when an investment looks sound. It is not helpful for renewable energy investors to know that the Trump administration is aggressively opposing renewable energy while promoting fossil fuels. Some companies have watched the attack on offshore leases and the billion-dollar payoff of TotalEnergies and decided to invest in something else or somewhere else. Of course, Trump’s war on wind may well be impacted by his other war, the one with Iran. We are all being reminded in real time about the volatility of the global fossil fuel market and the fragility of its supply chain. If the war continues for months rather than weeks, I wouldn’t be surprised to see investors ignoring the fossil fuel biases of the federal government.
Additionally, America’s renewable energy industry is adapting to a world without federal subsidies. While the sudden removal of political support and subsidies is destabilizing, it has the effect of enabling the discipline of the market to govern investment decisions. According to a recent report by Brad Plumer of the New York Times:
“Clean energy isn’t dead in the Trump era. But it does look different these days. Since returning to office, President Trump has dismantled federal efforts to fight climate change and vowed to stop new wind turbines from going up… Those moves have taken a brutal toll on America’s budding clean energy industry, including canceled offshore wind farms, shuttered electric-car factories and layoffs at climate technology start-ups. Yet many clean energy executives say they are finding ways to adapt, and some promising technologies that might help slow global warming are moving forward.”
It is unfortunate that climate change is seen as an ideological issue rather than as an objective fact that must be addressed. Fortunately, the use of fossil fuels for energy will be gradually ended for reasons other than combating climate change. I believe we are in the process of decarbonizing the world’s energy systems. It is not happening as quickly as it might, but it is happening. Donald Trump may hate wind power and love fossil fuels, but he is not going to win his war on wind.
Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Columbia School of Professional Studies or Columbia University.
About the Program
The Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program offered by the School of Professional Studies in partnership with the Climate School provides students cutting-edge policy and management tools they can use to help public and private organizations and governments address environmental impacts and risks, pollution control, and remediation to achieve sustainability. The program is customized for working professionals and is offered as both a full- and part-time course of study.
