Trump enrages MAHA with order granting “immunity” to glyphosate pesticide production

In a move enraging health and environmental advocates, President Donald Trump has signed an executive order protecting production of and providing “immunity” for glyphosate-based herbicides, such as Roundup, which have been linked to cancer and are the subject of widespread US litigation.

The order also protects domestic production of phosphorus, which is used in making glyphosate and other agricultural chemicals, as well as a range of other products, including some in military defense. Ensuring “robust domestic elemental phosphorus mining and United States-based production of glyphosate-based herbicides is central to American economic and national security,” the order states.

The Feb. 18 order cites authority under the Defense Production Act and instructs US Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to issue orders and regulations as “may be necessary to implement this order.”

The White House said “the threat of reduced or ceased production” of phosphorous and glyphosate herbicides “gravely endangers national security and defense, which includes food-supply security,” and the executive order cites glyphosate as a “cornerstone of this Nation’s agricultural productivity and rural economy.”

Neither the executive order nor the fact sheet the White House put out accompanying the order discloses that glyphosate-based herbicides have been linked to an array of cancers and other health problems in multiple independent research studies and by cancer experts of the World Health Organization.

“A mockery” to MAHA

The move by the White House comes as Roundup maker Bayer is struggling under the weight of tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging the company’s glyphosate herbicides cause cancer and the company failed to warn farmers and other users of the risks. The company, which inherited the litigation when it bought Monsanto in 2018, has already paid out billions of dollars in settlements and jury verdicts and said this week it was proposing to pay $7.25 billion in a class action settlement to try to head off future lawsuits.

Bayer has said that if it cannot find relief from the litigation it may stop making glyphosate herbicides for the US agricultural market.

“This executive order reads like it was drafted in a chemical company boardroom,” said Vani Hari, a food activist, author and one of the grass roots leaders of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) coalition. “Calling it ‘national defense’ while expanding protections for toxic products is a dangerous misdirection. Real national security is protecting American families, farmers, and children.”

Kelly Ryerson, another key actor in the MAHA movement who has been lobbying US regulators and lawmakers for restrictions on glyphosate and other pesticides, said the move by Trump is an insult to those who have largely supported the administration because of promises that MAHA issues would be taken seriously.

“The President is making a mockery of the very voters who put his administration into office,” Ryerson said. “Expanding the production of glyphosate, a pesticide derided by the MAHA movement, is a commitment to perpetuating the toxic, chemical food system that has created a sick and infertile American population. It is ironic that this move is made on behalf of national security, when the chemical destruction of both human and soil health is what actually threatens our national security and future as a productive nation.”

Lori Ann Burd, environmental health program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, called the executive order “a sickening love letter from Trump to the largest pesticide companies in the world.”

“It’s more proof that Trump doesn’t care at all about Americans’ health,” she said. “While he’s pandering to chemical companies the rest of the country, especially those who’ve been poisoned by pesticides, is rightfully asking ‘what about us?’

“Immunity” issues

Trump’s order contains a clause that “confers all immunity provided for in section 707 of the Act (50 U.S.C. 4557)” and states that “domestic producers of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides are required to comply with this order.”  The Act cited states that “no person shall be held liable” for “any act” resulting from compliance with an order issued pursuant to that law.

Bayer did not respond when asked how involved the company was in Trump’s executive order, but issued a statement saying: “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.”

The company has been engaged in an array of tactics to try to lift the litigation pressure, including pressing Congress for language in the Farm Bill and other legislation that would restrict the ability of people to sue the company for failing to warn of cancer risks if the US Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t require such warnings.

The company has already succeeded in getting laws protecting it from lawsuits passed in two states and is pressing for more state laws. It has also asked the US Supreme Court to rule in its favor on the issue of federal preemption of failure-to-warn lawsuits, and the high court has set a hearing for April 27.

Legal experts were analyzing if and how the executive order may or may not actually provide legal protections for glyphosate and phosphorus manufacturing. But George Kimbrell, legal director at Center for Food Safety said the Trump order was part of a pattern of “sound and fury, ultimately signifying nothing.”

“Executive orders do not have the force and effect of law without new authority from Congress and here cannot magically give Monsanto immunity for the harms of its toxic glyphosate products,” Kimbrell said in a statement. “This [executive order] is a transparent attempt to influence the Supreme Court to grant glyphosate-maker Monsanto/Bayer and other pesticide behemoths immunity from liability for the harms caused by their products.”

In responding to the executive order, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) noted that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was appointed by Trump as Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, has a long history of criticizing glyphosate and its maker over the health harms tied to the herbicide, and that both Trump and Kennedy had pledged to address health concerns about glyphosate and other pesticides.

“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,” EWG President and co-Founder Ken Cook said in a statement.

“I can’t envision a bigger middle finger to every MAHA mom than this,” Cook said. “By granting immunity to the makers of the nation’s most widely used pesticide, President Trump just gave Bayer a license to poison people.”

In response to questions about the executive order, Kennedy issued a statement saying that the order “puts America first where it matters most — our defense readiness and our food supply.”

Featured image: White House hand out.