Trump declares glyphosate defense priority
President Trump today signed an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to make the supply of glyphosate critical to national security.
The order will require Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to issue orders and regulations to implement the increased supply of phosphorus and glyphosate, CNBC said in an analysis.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., issued a statement praising the order.
“Thank you to President Trump for acknowledging the importance of glyphosate-based herbicides in American agriculture,” Thompson said.
“At the House Committee on Agriculture, we know that food security is national security, and this is a vital step forward in ensuring a domestic supply of this critical crop input remains available for our producers.”
The Environmental Working Group blasted the move.
“If anyone still wondered whether ‘Make America Healthy Again’ was a genuine commitment to protecting public health or a scam concocted by President Trump and RFK Jr. to rally health-conscious voters in 2024, today’s decision answers that question,” said EWG President and Co-Founder Ken Cook.
“I can’t envision a bigger middle finger to every MAHA mom than this,” he added. “By granting immunity to the makers of the nation’s most widely used pesticide, President Trump just gave Bayer a license to poison people. Full stop.”
“It’s a shocking betrayal to protect all of us but especially the people who live and work near farm fields where glyphosate is used,” said Cook.
The EWG news release noted that before he was in his current position, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “for years” publicly attacked glyphosate and “built a national profile suing its maker Bayer-Monsanto over health harms tied to the herbicide.”
EWG said that when campaigning, both Trump and Kennedy “pledged to confront pesticides like glyphosate and clean up the food supply to win the trust of health-conscious voters worried about pesticide exposure.”
“Elevating glyphosate to a national security priority is the exact opposite of what MAHA voters were promised,” said Cook. “If Secretary Kennedy remains at HHS after this, it will be impossible to argue that his past warnings about glyphosate were anything more than campaign rhetoric designed to win trust — and votes.”
“First President Trump sided with Bayer-Monsanto on glyphosate at the Supreme Court, and now he’s elevating it through the Defense Department,” said Cook. “At this rate, maybe the National Cancer Institute will be next to bless the safety of this notorious weedkiller at his urging.
“MAHA supporters were promised reform, and instead, they’ve been treated by MAGA like a convenient group of useful idiots ever since Kennedy joined Trump on the campaign trail,” he added.
The executive order was issued as Bayer agreed to a settlement regarding Roundup, the Monsanto glyphosate product, as a carcinogen.
Bayer and attorneys for cancer patients announced a proposed $7.25 billion settlement Tuesday to resolve thousands of U.S. lawsuits alleging the company failed to warn people that its popular weedkiller, Roundup, could cause cancer, the Associated Press reported.
The proposed settlement — which must be approved by a St. Louis court — would compensate people nationwide who were exposed to Roundup products and diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, as well as those who are diagnosed in the future, the Missouri Independent noted.
