President Donald Trump once stared at a solar eclipse without glasses. His administration is now looking at solar energy with the same disregard.
According to The Washington Post, Solar power provided most of the new electricity added to the U.S. grid last year, according to the Energy Department. Federal data show it will also supply most of the new power built in the United States for the rest of Trump’s term. But Trump and his Cabinet have argued that solar is unreliable, expensive, and not capable of powering the world.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright has been the most vocal critic. He called solar panels “just a parasite” on the grid and said they could never power the planet, even if they covered the Earth. The Energy Department’s official account on X, which promoted solar projects during the Biden years, now says panels are “essentially worthless when it is dark outside.”
The administration has used those arguments to justify slowing solar development while promoting fossil fuels. Natural gas, where Wright made his fortune before joining the government, has received the most support.
At the United Nations this week, Trump told world leaders that “the high cost of so-called green renewable energy is destroying a large part of the free world and a large part of our planet.”
Despite that claim, U.S. data show solar is already the country’s fastest-growing source of electricity. Analysts expect it to dominate new electricity generation through at least 2028. Globally, solar still makes up less than 3 percent of total energy, but forecasts show steady growth in the decades ahead.
Critics say Trump’s stance makes the United States an outlier. The European Union, China, India, and Brazil are all investing heavily in renewables. “The U.S. is really an exception,” said Robert Stavins, a professor of energy and economic development at Harvard University.
Some conservatives back Trump’s decision to roll back subsidies for solar but disagree with his efforts to block projects. “If fossil fuels are better, just let them compete,” said Josiah Neeley, a fellow at the R Street Institute.
Others see Trump’s energy policy as mirroring what Democrats did under Biden, but with the roles reversed. “The pearl clutching is ironic,” said Travis Fisher of the libertarian Cato Institute. “The left spent decades blocking fossil projects, and now the right is doing the same with solar.”
Energy experts warn that the U.S. risks slowing down its most promising power source at a time when demand is rising. “What they’re doing is making it much harder than necessary to build competitive wind and solar,” said Jesse Jenkins, an energy systems engineer at Princeton University.
Even without strong government support, most analysts expect solar to keep growing. Prices have dropped sharply in the past decade, and adoption is spreading worldwide. “It will probably end up somewhere between what Trump predicts and what solar advocates hope for,” Fisher said. “The market will decide where it lands.”
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