Trump Directs USDA to Make More Glyphosate, Signals Liability Protection for Pesticide Makers

This says a whole lot about the peace loving Trump doesn’t it? Take note! EWNZ

President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act of 1950 to expand domestic production of glyphosate, the controversial weedkiller at the center of more than 60,000 cancer lawsuits against Bayer. The move sparked outrage from MAHA activists and health advocates who said it puts corporate interests ahead of public health.

by Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.

President Donald Trump late Wednesday signed an executive order intended to boost domestic production of glyphosate.

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller. Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in June 2018, is facing tens of thousands of lawsuits from people alleging Roundup caused them to develop cancer.

Trump’s order also grants legal immunity to domestic manufacturers of products containing glyphosate when manufacturers are ordered, under the Defense Production Act of 1950, to produce the products.

The Defense Production Act is used in national emergencies to compel the production of materials or supplies necessary for national security.

Bayer is the only company producing glyphosate in the U.S. However, U.S. farmers also import the chemical from China, Reuters reported.

The executive order also applies to elemental phosphorus, used in weapons production, electronics and batteries. Elemental phosphorus is also used to make glyphosate.

Trump said elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides are scarce materials critical to national defense, and that inadequate domestic production poses an imminent threat to military readiness and food security.

“Glyphosate-based herbicides are a cornerstone of this Nation’s agricultural productivity and rural economy,” he said.

The order directs U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins to create rules for increasing the supply of phosphorus and glyphosate.

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Trump’s order riles groups opposed to pesticide use

Trump’s executive order outraged MAHA activists, many of whom have been fighting the use of Roundup and other glyphosate-based weedkillers for decades.

“The implications of this executive order are irreversible,” Zen Honeycutt, executive director of Moms Across America, told The Defender.

She added:

“Not only has Trump gone back on his word to go after pesticides, destroying the delicate trust that was being built by the MAHA movement with the government, but he paved the path for glyphosate to continue destroying farmland, fertility, and our families’ health for generations to come.

“That is not a dramatic statement. It’s what the independent science has been telling us for decades.”

Toxicologist Alexandra Muñoz, Ph.D., denounced the decision on X. “The executive branch has just endorsed a carcinogen and enshrined it. This is outrageous and unacceptable. Glyphosate is a carcinogen — and the idea that promoting a carcinogen will make us stronger as a country is deeply misguided!!”

Investigative journalist Carey Gillam, author of two books exposing Monsanto’s corrupt practices to sell glyphosate and Roundup, said the order confirmed that Trump’s allegiance is to corporate profits over public health.

‘Clearly designed to offer a broad immunity’

The executive order states that it “confers all immunity provided for in section 707 of the Act (50 U.S.C. 4557).” The act itself says “no person shall be held liable” for “any act” resulting from compliance with an order issued under that law, Gillam wrote for The New Lede.

Brett Hartl is director of Government Affairs for the Center for Biological Diversity, which has filed multiple lawsuits challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of glyphosate. Hartl told The New York Times that Trump’s order is “alarming because it’s clearly designed to offer a broad immunity.”

Bayer has already paid about $10 billion to resolve lawsuits filed against Monsanto before the German chemical giant acquired Monsanto. The company still faces more than 60,000 lawsuits nationally.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court said it will hear a controversial case that could determine whether Bayer can be held liable for failing to warn people that Roundup weedkiller may cause cancer.

The decision came after the Trump administration submitted an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court justices to hear the case. The administration argued that federal laws governing pesticides likely preempt states from making their own labeling requirements.

Bayer CEO Bill Anderson reportedly personally attended Trump’s inauguration.

Bayer ‘will comply with this order to produce glyphosate’

Last week, Bayer announced that Monsanto had reached a tentative agreement to settle tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging Roundup caused cancer for $7.25 billion.

The company has also been rolling out a series of legislative attempts to constrain consumers’ ability to sue it for health damages from glyphosate.

Earlier this year, a broad bipartisan coalition of food and environmental health advocates succeeded in eliminating a Bayer-backed provision tucked into a congressional appropriations bill that would have restricted the ability of people to sue the company for failing to warn of health risks if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration didn’t require the warnings.

Bayer has been pushing for a similar measure to be written into the pending Farm Bill,

The company also created a lobbying group, the Modern Ag Alliance, which has been pushing for laws at the state level to make it harder for consumers to sue over pesticide risks.

The state laws would shield Bayer from future lawsuits and potentially nullify at least some of the 67,000 active claims against the company. Georgia and North Dakota have passed these liability shield laws.

Bayer declined to comment on how the executive order related to its other attempts to shore up its immunity to liability.

In a statement to The Defender on behalf of Monsanto, a Bayer spokesperson said:

“President Trump’s Executive Order reinforces the critical need for U.S. farmers to have access to essential, domestically produced crop protection tools such as glyphosate. We will comply with this order to produce glyphosate and elemental phosphorus.”

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RFK Jr. endorses executive order

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has publicly criticized glyphosate for years. As an attorney, in 2018, he helped to win a landmark $289 million jury verdict against Monsanto for plaintiffs who said that Roundup caused their cancer.

As a presidential candidate in 2024, Kennedy said in a post on X that glyphosate is “one nof the likely culprits in America’s chronic disease epidemic.”

However, in a statement reported by the Times, Kennedy said he supported the president’s decision.

“Donald Trump’s executive order puts America first where it matters most — our defense readiness and our food supply,” Kennedy said. “We must safeguard America’s national security first, because all of our priorities depend on it.”

Since taking office, Kennedy has argued that banning glyphosate would put farmers out of business and that instead it should be phased out.

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Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.

Brenda Baletti, Ph.D., is a senior reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.

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