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President Donald Trump has slammed Germany's green energy experiment as economically damaging, claiming the country would have collapsed if it had not changed course, and warning that climate policies could destroy economies — an argument that has reignited a fierce fight over whether net zero is saving the planet or sacrificing national prosperity.
At a campaign rally in Tennessee, Trump put it bluntly: "We're getting away from windmills... Show me a green energy country, and I'll show you a bankrupt country... You know, Germany tried it. They were about two days away from extinction." He made the same case at the United Nations General Assembly, praising Germany for reversing course on renewables and saying: "They were going all green. All green is all bankrupt."
Germany has in fact changed course. On January 15, 2026, Berlin reached agreement with the European Commission on a power plant strategy to tender 12 gigawatts of controllable capacity in 2026, mostly modern gas-fired plants to come online by 2031. The Bundestag approved the plan in July 2026, and the European Commission later approved up to 35.2 billion euros in state aid for the gas plants. Economy Minister Katherina Reiche said the plants would secure electricity supply and protect industrial competitiveness; they must be hydrogen-ready and climate-neutral by 2045.
The claims have drawn pushback. Critics note that the world's biggest wind-power markets — China, the United States and Germany — are major thriving economies, not bankrupt ones. In Germany itself, the Greens and the Left criticised the gas plan for deepening dependence on gas imports and for unclear costs, while the AfD raised the multibillion-euro price tag and renewed calls to return to nuclear power.