USA pauses Danish offshore wind projects after the Department of the Interior said it is suspending lease contracts for five large offshore wind farms under construction off the USA East Coast, citing national security concerns flagged by the Pentagon.
The pause was announced on Monday, 22 December, with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum saying on X that the leases are being put “on pause” because of concerns linked to military security. The department said the decision is meant to create time to work with developers and state partners on possible mitigation measures.
Two of the projects are led by Denmark’s Ørsted, one is partly owned by Denmark-based Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, and another includes turbines from Denmark’s Vestas — making the decision a direct hit to Danish energy companies with major exposure to the USA offshore wind market.
Five offshore wind leases put on hold off the east coast
According to US officials and reporting by international news agencies, the five projects affected are:
- Revolution Wind (Ørsted and partners), off Rhode Island and Connecticut
- Sunrise Wind (Ørsted), off New York
- Vineyard Wind 1 (Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners), off Massachusetts
- Empire Wind 1 (Equinor), off New York — with turbines supplied by Vestas
- Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (Dominion Energy), off Virginia
The Interior Department said the suspension applies to lease contracts and will remain in place while federal agencies assess whether the national-security risks can be reduced.
Pentagon radar concerns behind the national security claim
The Interior Department has not published the classified assessments it referenced, but it said the security risks emerged in recently completed classified reports. Reporting cited Pentagon concerns that moving turbine blades and reflective towers could create radar interference — sometimes described as “radar clutter” — that may make it harder to distinguish legitimate targets.
The department also pointed to the planned locations of the wind farms near major USA East Coast population centres as a factor in the security assessment, without providing further detail.
Burgum described offshore wind as “expensive”, “unreliable” and heavily subsidised, and framed the pause as part of an energy policy shift under the Trump administration.
Danish companies exposed: Ørsted, Vestas and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners
For Denmark, the decision lands on a sensitive overlap of energy, industry and transatlantic politics.
Ørsted is directly affected through Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind, two flagship projects in the company’s USA portfolio. Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners is involved in Vineyard Wind 1, one of the best-known offshore wind projects in the USA.
Vestas is not the developer of a paused wind farm, but it is exposed through its role as turbine supplier for Empire Wind 1.
The immediate market reaction in Copenhagen was sharp. Ørsted’s share price fell around 10–15% during Monday’s trading, while Vestas declined by roughly 3–5%, according to Danish media reports. In value terms, Danish financial coverage estimated that Ørsted’s drop corresponded to roughly DKK 20 billion (about €2.7 billion) in market value, while Vestas’ decline was estimated at DKK 6 billion (about €0.8 billion), using Denmark’s central exchange rate of DKK 7.46038 per euro.
A familiar pattern: earlier stop-work orders and court challenges
The suspension follows earlier clashes between the Trump administration and offshore wind developers.
Revolution Wind was previously ordered to stop work when construction was far advanced, and developers moved to challenge the decision in court. A judge later allowed construction to continue, highlighting the legal uncertainty facing large energy projects caught between federal agencies, state policy and litigation.
The new move differs in form — it targets leases rather than a single stop-work order — but the effect is similar: it injects uncertainty into projects that were already under construction and had relied on multi-agency approvals.
National security language and a broader Denmark–USA dispute
The Interior Department’s decision was announced on the same day Trump appointed Jeff Landry as a special envoy to Greenland and again framed Greenland as “critical” to USA security.
In Copenhagen and Nuuk, that sequence has reinforced the perception that “national security” is increasingly used as a political frame in disputes involving Denmark and Danish-linked projects — from Arctic diplomacy to energy infrastructure.
Denmark’s foreign minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, has said he will summon the USA ambassador in Copenhagen for talks following the Greenland envoy appointment. The offshore wind pause adds a second, economically significant issue to an already tense agenda.
For the Danish energy sector, the key question is whether the USA agencies involved can define concrete mitigation measures — for example on radar and surveillance — that would allow projects to resume, or whether the pause becomes part of a longer-term rollback of offshore wind in USA federal policy.
