Trump said wind energy is for “stupid people.” Europe responded five days later

The United States remains in clear contrast with its European partners

At one in Davos last month, the US president criticized “wind turbines” as “losers” and called the nations that buy them “stupid people.” Just five days later, nine European countries signed a deal to build a vast offshore wind energy hub in the North Sea, the epicenter of the continent’s oil and gas industry.

The deal — not a direct response to Trump’s tirade against wind energy — offers a huge potential prize for Europe: It could boost energy security and free the continent from its heavy dependence on U.S. oil and gas, at a time when the U.S. is proving itself to be one of the most powerful countries in the world.

Europe is one of several energy-importing economic powers that increasingly see renewables as synonymous with energy independence: India is moving at a rapid pace, and China has installed more wind and solar power in 2024 than the total amount of renewable energy operating in the United States.

The US is in clear contrast, going all-in on fossil fuels while. In energy, the US is now more “aligned with petrostates like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Russia,” explains Thijs Van de Graaf, associate professor of international politics at Ghent University.

The gigantic European offshore wind energy project will be “the world’s largest clean energy hub”, according to the , signed by Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom at the North Sea Summit held in Germany in January.

It is expected to produce 100 gigawatts of offshore wind power – enough to power around 50 million homes – linked to countries via high-voltage submarine cables. It is presented as a way to strengthen energy resilience, provide affordable electricity and safeguard energy security.

Europe, unlike the US, does not have vast reserves of domestic fossil fuels, and domestic production is declining. A huge gas field in the Netherlands has been reduced after years of causing earthquakes, and production from the aging North Sea oil and gas basin is in decline.

The block currently imports its energy. This level of dependence “is a kind of vulnerability… that others can put pressure on,” according to Louise van Schaik, senior researcher at Clingendael, an international relations think tank based in the Netherlands.

And, in recent years, countries have put a lot of pressure on this vulnerability.

Russia has “actually used gas as a weapon” against Europe since it invaded Ukraine in 2022, adds van Schaik. As Russia reduced flows, prices soared, increasing energy bills and helping fuel a cost-of-living crisis.

Europe moved quickly to reduce dependence on Russia, but instead of diversifying, it swapped dependence on Russia for dependence on the United States, van Schaik said. Almost 60% of European liquefied natural gas imports in 2025 will now come from the US.

The boom in U.S. LNG fueling Europe has been an important replacement for Russian gas, but it has also exposed the bloc to volatile natural gas prices that can rise when there is more demand.

“We saw a lot of impacts on the real economy from not having cheap Russian gas, then switching to LNG, which was much more expensive,” says Linda Kalcher, founder of the European think tank Strategic Perspectives.

Furthermore, while relying on the US may have seemed like a safe bet a few years ago, it appears increasingly unstable under a Trump administration that has shown no hesitation in using its economic power against adversaries and allies alike.

Last summer, as Trump escalated tariff threats, Europe committed to buying more American oil, gas and nuclear per year over the next three years than it currently imports from the US.

In October, the Trump administration the maritime industry plans for the “world’s first global carbon tax,” and in November it published a national security strategy that sharply criticized Europe’s clean energy policies and explicitly said it would expand U.S. energy exports.

But Trump’s demands to own Greenland – with brief fears that he might consider using military force to get it – were the real “galvanizing moment”, says Van de Graaf. It was a huge blow to the transatlantic relationship.

The US is resorting to “scare tactics”, according to Jennifer Morgan, a former German climate envoy. “I think this has woken up the EU to the fact that it is now very dependent and vulnerable to another leader.”

Clean energy offers a path to moving away from dependence on the US and toward energy security, experts told CNN. It’s something the continent has in abundance, from its sunny south to its windy north. The North Sea, with its shallow waters and windy climate, is the “most promising area in the world” for offshore wind energy, says Van de Graaf.

Wind and solar energy by 2025, overtaking fossil fuels for the first time. Wind dominates, generating 19% of the EU’s electricity last year. “We can no longer talk about these energy sources as alternatives; this is the new pillar of our electricity supply”, he adds.

Globally, the renewable energy industry faces challenges: raw materials and labor are more expensive, investment levels have faltered, and in the US, Trump is trying to – – stop wind projects, which further affects investor confidence. But the European offshore wind power deal hopes to reduce costs with its enormous scale and emphasis on interconnection between countries.

The way Europe thinks about clean energy has changed, according to Morgan. Where once it was about climate policy, now it is about cost and politics. Renewable energy “changed the economy. It changed the political economy.”

As the Trump administration moves away from clean energy and toward fossil fuels, it is helping to accelerate this clean energy movement across the Atlantic, adds Van de Graaf. “For all his rhetoric, (Trump) is actually doing the renewable business a favor.”