by Neil Auwarter
Since returning to power in 2025, the Trump administration has dismantled clean energy incentives, lavished tens of billions in new subsidies on oil, gas and coal, and used coercive tariffs to pressure allies into long-term commitments to buy American gas. In March the Administration cut a deal to pay French energy giant TotalEnergies $1 billion to scrap two ocean wind farms off the coasts of New York and North Carolina, and instead invest in drilling for gas and oil in Texas and the Gulf. In short, the Trump Administration is doing its worst to prolong fossil fuel dependence, at home and abroad. This hammer and tongs governmental effort to encourage a harmful societal addiction to protect the profits of corporate masters may seem unprecedented. But it is not.
Empire of addiction: Fossil fuels and echoes of the opium wars
More than a century before Pablo Escobar’s Colombia and the Taliban’s Afghanistan, the first narco-state was the world’s most powerful and advanced nation, Great Britain. In the mid-19th century, the English manufactured opium from vast poppy plantations in India. The industry was hugely profitable, particularly for the behemoth British East India Company. The British shipped tons of the drug to China, where a large swath of the population was addicted. Chinese authorities outlawed the drug and in 1839 banned its importation. Britain responded by waging war, forcing the Emperor to capitulate and allow the British to continue inundating the Chinese population with opium.
Victorian England dressed its Opium Wars in the language of “free trade.” The Trump administration frames its war on green energy in favor of fossil fuels as “energy dominance” and economic patriotism. But beneath the rhetoric is the same reality: government power deployed to help huge corporations feed a societal addiction to a harmful product.
Global green energy sails forward regardless.
Despite Trump’s efforts, outside the United States the transition to renewables appears robust. Some statistics: In January 2026, 94% of Norwegian car buyers chose electric vehicles; the number of traditional gasoline vehicles sold: seven. Across the entire European Union, in 2025 for the first time more electricity was generated by solar and wind (30%) than by fossil fuels (29%). In India, the world’s most populous nation, rooftop solar units proliferate; by June 2025 half of India’s electrical power capacity was from non-fossil fuel sources. And in China, by far the planet’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, carbon emissions have been flat or declining in the 18 months since March 2024. Notably, this appears to be the first time in recorded history a major nation has bent its emissions curve downward while still in a stage of booming industrial growth.
Trump’s moves to disrupt the world order have actually super-charged the trend toward renewables
Ironically, Trump’s crusade to maintain fossil fuel dominance is likely accelerating the very energy transition he seeks to reverse, backfiring like a dirty carburetor. How? The U.S. is the world’s largest exporter of natural gas. American gas exports to Europe in particular increased after Vladimir Putin cut Europe off from Russian gas in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. But now Trump’s threats against allies, tariffs and erratic behavior have caused trading partners to look for alternatives to imported gas altogether. As the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics put it, “Once hailed as ‘molecules of freedom,’ US oil and gas now expose the [EU] to the political demands and whims of the White House.”
In his speech at Davos in January, Trump mocked renewables, calling nations building wind farms “stupid people.” Just five days later, nine European nations inked a deal to jointly build a vast wind power hub in the North Sea that will help wean Europe from imported U.S. gas. Meanwhile, Trump’s tariffs of up to 3500% on solar panels from Southeast Asia prompted nations like Vietnam and Malaysia to focus on developing their domestic solar capacity to transition away from fossil fuels. And most recently, Trump’s decision to wage war against Iran, prompting Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, cut off 10 to 20% of the world’s oil supply. This interruption will only intensify the resolve of gas and oil-importing nations to look inward for secure energy sources, which for many nations means wind, solar and nuclear.
Charting the global green energy transition
The chart below shows not only that the United States lags behind its peers in percent of domestic electricity generated by renewable sources, but that after Trump’s re-election in 2024 peer nations’ estimated renewables rates continue to climb, while the U.S. rate flattens at 24%.
Renewable share of electricity generation (%)
Chart generated by Claude – sources: Ember Yearly Electricity Data 2026; IEA Global Energy Review 2025; Enerdata Statistical Yearbook 2025; US EIA Electric Power Annual.) 2025 = preliminary estimate.
While the global green-energy trend is immensely promising, carbon emissions are still dangerously high. Global temperatures will remain elevated for decades due to long-lasting carbon emissions already in the atmosphere. The question is whether we can arrest rising temperatures before causing irreversible harm to the planet. This remains an all-hands-on-deck moment. Every rational person should make choices — political, economic and personal — that will reduce fossil fuel consumption and help protect the climate that sustains us.