President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Wednesday under the Defense Production Act to encourage the domestic production of phosphorus and the weedkiller glyphosate, which he claimed is essential to defense and food security.
Glyphosate is a popular subject of the proponents of the Make America Healthy Again movement and the adversary of the harmful chemical. Trump aligned with the MAHA movement after Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropped out of the 2024 election.
Trump said in the order, “I find that ensuring robust domestic elemental phosphorus mining and United States-based production of glyphosate-based herbicides is central to American economic and national security. Without immediate Federal action, the United States remains inadequately equipped and vulnerable.”
Glyphosate was extensively utilized in the American agricultural sector and was involved in a controversy due to its alleged connection to cancer.
The company that manufactures the glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup, Bayer, recently suggested paying $7.25 billion to settle lawsuits that the chemical causes cancer.
Phosphorus, also included in the order, is a precursor of the production of glyphosate and is also employed in the production of some military equipment.
The order will also mandate Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to make orders and regulations to enforce the augmented provision of phosphorus and glyphosate.
A White House Fact sheet on the executive order stated that Trump signed it to “ensure domestic production of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides, the loss of which would cripple critical supply chains.”
The absence of either chemical, the fact sheet asserted, “leave our defense industrial base and food supply vulnerable to hostile foreign actors,” since there is only “one domestic producer of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides.”
Kennedy had won a case worth about $290 million against Roundup producer Monsanto, which has since been acquired by Bayer, for a man who alleged he developed cancer from using the weedkiller. In the post since he was nominated to head HHS under Trump, he has muted his rhetoric on the chemical.
He reported during a hearing last year, “We cannot take any step that will put a single farmer in this country out of business. There’s a million farmers who rely on glyphosate.”
However, CNBC has reached out to HHS for comment. Monsanto added in a statement to CNBC that the executive order “reinforces the critical need for U.S. farmers to have access to essential, domestically produced crop protection tools such as glyphosate.”
The company said, “We will comply with this order to produce glyphosate and elemental phosphorus.”
