The Trump administration on Friday issued an order to stop work on the offshore wind energy project, Revolution Wind, which is reportedly 80 percent complete. The White House justified the stop-work order in a letter to the Orsted, the Danish company developing Revolution Wind in federal waters between Rhode Island and Connecticut, citing “national security concerns” — but without further explanation.
[Note: President Trump has repeatedly criticized wind turbines, saying they are unattractive and dangerous to marine life. He has also said they are unreliable, a claim unsupported by data.]
Sean McGarvey, President of North America’s Building Trades Unions (an alliance of 14 national and international unions in the building and construction industry collectively representing over 3 million skilled craft professionals in the United States and Canada), responded by writing:
“President Donald Trump just fired 1,000 of our members who had already labored to complete 80% of this major energy project. A ‘stop-work order’ is the fancy bureaucratic term, but it means one thing: throwing skilled American workers off the job after they’ve spent a decade training, building, and delivering.”
McGarvey added: “President Trump personally signed off on killing these jobs and creating chaos.”
U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) responded to the stop-work order: “Trump isn’t just coming after offshore wind. He’s coming after well-paying union jobs.”
Trump isn’t just coming after offshore wind. He’s coming after well-paying union jobs. pic.twitter.com/qbHDl9WoWo
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) August 26, 2025
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) wrote: “Trump’s decision to halt work on the Revolution Wind project – which is 80% complete! – is another example of his corruption. The project was fully permitted and almost done but his oil industry backers don’t want it.”
The Building Trades Union added another quote from McGarvey on X: “President Trump and Congress must reverse this reckless stop-work order and other looming project cancellations immediately and get America’s construction workers back to work. Stop canceling and shutting down projects. Stop taking away good-paying American jobs. Stop pulling the rug out from under skilled American workers. Fix this now.”
Let’s call the Department of the Interior’s stop-work order for Revolution Wind what it is: President Donald Trump just fired 1,000 of our members who had already labored to complete 80% of this major energy project. A ‘stop-work order’ is the fancy bureaucratic term, but it… pic.twitter.com/nef814G36S
— The Building Trades (@NABTU) August 25, 2025
In a written statement, McGarvey said: “This project isn’t some pipe dream; it’s real steel in the water and $1.3 billion in investment already on the ground. And with the stroke of a pen late on a Friday, President Trump personally signed off on killing these jobs and creating chaos. He pulled the plug on an almost-finished project, taking jobs, paychecks, and food off the tables of working families in Connecticut and Rhode Island.”
