After lots of trial and error, I found that deselecting the checkbox Deploy database properties
stopped the publish script from including the junk about turning off encryption. Then it was a matter of finding which db property was causing this.

I saw my dbproj
target platform was set to Microsoft Azure SQL Database
not Microsoft Azure SQL Database V12
. V12 is what has TDE, the old db does not.
Once you go to the properties on your dbproj (right click proj > properties), go to project setttings, change to V12, then click on Database Settings
. Go to Miscellaneous
tab and check Encryption enabled
. Voila, you're done. Make sure you have Deploy database properties
re-enabled in your publish settings.

