The Trump administration has agreed to pay German energy giant RWE approximately $1.2 billion to abandon its offshore wind leases along the US coastline, the latest in a series of buyout deals designed to roll back renewable energy development in favour of fossil fuels. RWE will relinquish its rights to develop wind farms off the coasts of New York, California, and Louisiana — some of the most strategically significant sites on the US eastern and southern seaboards.

RWE had originally secured the leases under the Biden administration, paying roughly $1.1 billion at a 2022 New York auction — at the time the largest offshore wind auction ever held — plus an additional $163 million for sites in Louisiana and California. The New York project alone had been planned at a capacity of 3 gigawatts, with the company promising in 2024 that it would create 700 jobs and generate $3 billion in local economic activity. The company now says it will redirect the buyout funds into gas projects, including $900 million toward liquefied natural gas and $300 million into gas turbines. "After careful consideration, we concluded that these projects cannot be advanced in the US for the foreseeable future," RWE stated, adding that the decision was in the interest of shareholders and offered the chance to invest in projects with "greater certainty."

The deal is part of a broader and accelerating pattern. The Trump administration has now bought out wind leases from five energy companies at a total cost of around $3.93 billion, with the RWE payment being the largest single transaction to date. Earlier this year, French energy company TotalEnergies agreed to abandon its US offshore wind projects in exchange for a similar arrangement, redirecting investment into an LNG plant in Texas and conventional oil development in the Gulf of Mexico. Charlotte-based Duke Energy accepted $129 million last month to terminate a lease off the Carolina coast.

The administration has framed the policy as common sense energy management. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Americans deserve an energy system "not dependent on costly subsidies," while President Trump — who has repeatedly derided wind turbines as "big, ugly windmills" dangerous to wildlife and this week declared that "any country with windmills is a loser" — has made blocking offshore wind a centrepiece of his energy agenda since returning to office.

Environmentalists and climate advocates have sharply criticised RWE's decision. Greenpeace's Marina Falke called it "a slap in the face for the energy transition," accusing the company of greenwashing by presenting itself as a green firm in Germany while capitulating to political pressure in the US. Germany's environmental organisation DUH echoed that concern, with director Sascha Müller-Kraenner saying that reinvesting in fossil fuel infrastructure was "in flagrant contradiction" with RWE's stated goal of net-zero emissions by 2040. Adding a counterpoint to the overall trend, a US court ruled this week that the government must lift its block on wind energy permitting processes, finding that routine military reviews of wind projects had been unlawfully suspended without sufficient justification — a potential, if uncertain, check on the administration's anti-wind drive.