President Trump’s Executive Order Claims Glyphosate Is Essential for National Defense
The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement has been in turmoil ever since February 18, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order that declared glyphosate essential for national defense.
The order starts out reasonably enough, explaining that elemental phosphorus is critical for manufacturing “numerous defense technologies.” But then it goes on to claim that glyphosate is also critical for national defense, which is a bit more of a stretch.
“As the most widely used crop protection tools in United States agriculture, glyphosate-based herbicides are a cornerstone of this Nation’s agricultural productivity,” the executive order states—using language that food activist Vani Hari notes “reads like it was drafted in a chemical company boardroom.”
“Lack of access to glyphosate-based herbicides would critically jeopardize agricultural productivity,” the order continues. “Any major restrictions in access to glyphosate-based herbicides would result in economic losses for growers and make it untenable for them to meet growing food and feed demands.”
Not surprisingly, Bayer applauded the order, saying that they would “comply with this order to produce glyphosate and elemental phosphorus.”
Much more troubling to MAHA advocates, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is supporting Trump’s executive order.
“Donald Trump’s executive order puts America first where it matters most — our defense readiness and our food supply,” Kennedy told the New York Times. “We must safeguard America’s national security first, because all of our priorities depend on it.”
“I can’t envision a bigger middle finger to every MAHA mom than this,” Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook commented. “By granting immunity to the makers of the nation’s most widely used pesticide, President Trump just gave Bayer a license to poison people.”
On February 19, US Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced the “No Immunity for Glyphosate Act,” which would “prohibit the use of federal funds” to implement Trump’s executive order, essentially rendering it toothless.
While concern about glyphosate’s toxicity is important, it doesn’t address the underlying problem of how Trump’s claim that glyphosate is essential for national security has basically gone unquestioned. His executive order is based on the assumption that agricultural chemicals—especially glyphosate—are essential to feed the world.
Not using glyphosate, the Michigan Farm Bureau claims, would reduce farm income by $2.9 billion. But that number is actually the amount farmers would save if they didn’t use glyphosate, because US farmers spend $2.8 billion annually for the 280 million pounds of glyphosate they apply to their fields. Farmers spend anywhere between $50 to $100 per acre on herbicides each year—which is how much they were losing on their soybean crop in 2025.
Eco-farmers know that it’s possible, practical, and affordable to grow good-quality crops without glyphosate or any other herbicide. Agricultural systems that don’t rely on any manufactured inputs are a much more secure form of national defense than propping up a floundering, lawsuit-embroiled, and foreign-owned chemical company.
We just need to figure out how to get that information to President Trump.
