Trump Signs Order Protecting Glyphosate, Phosphorus Production

Progressive Farmer’s Chris Clayton reported that “invoking the Defense Production Act, President Donald Trump on Wednesday designated glyphosate-based herbicides and elemental phosphorus as critical to national defense and ordered Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to prioritize and secure domestic supplies.”

“The order also grants legal immunity to domestic producers that comply with federal directives and gives USDA authority to direct production and control distribution if necessary,” Clayton reported. “Citing the Defense Production Act, Trump declared phosphorus and glyphosate products are essential not only for agriculture but also for military readiness as well. The threat of scarcity for either phosphorus or glyphosate would leave the U.S. vulnerable.”

“At USDA, Rollins will consult with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and work to ‘determine the proper nationwide priorities and allocation of all the materials, services, and facilities necessary to ensure a continued and adequate supply of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides,'” Clayton reported. “Rollins will issue the rules and orders necessary to implement the order.”

“The order also tells Rollins to protect domestic suppliers from going out of business, but also shielding those companies from regulatory or financial pressures,” Clayton reported. “Rollins also should ensure any rule or regulation ‘does not place the corporate viability of any domestic producer of elemental phosphorus or glyphosate-based herbicides at risk.'”

CNBC’s Garrett Downs reported that “a White House Fact sheet on the executive order said Trump signed it to ‘ensure domestic production of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides, the loss of which would cripple critical supply chains.'”

“A lack of either chemical, the fact sheet said, could ‘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.'”

Clayton reported that “when it comes to domestic phosphate production, Mosaic states the company is responsible for 74% of ‘concentrated phosphate crop nutrients’ across North America. Combined with Nutrien, the two companies control more than 90% of phosphate fertilizer sales to U.S. farmers, the group Farm Action cites. Bayer (Monsanto) is the only domestic supplier of glyphosate. The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Bayer produces roughly 40% of the world’s glyphosate at its U.S. facilities.”

Bayer Applauds the Executive Order

Reuters’ Patricia Weiss reported that “the U.S. President’s executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to ensure U.S. supply of glyphosate underscores U.S. farmers’ needs to have access to the herbicide, Bayer said on Thursday, adding the move would not lead to shortages in other countries.”

FOOD SECURITY IS NATIONAL SECURITY: Thank you, President Trump, for acknowledging the importance of glyphosate-based herbicides in American agriculture. This is a vital step forward in ensuring a domestic supply of this critical crop input remains available for our producers. pic.twitter.com/SE9ebKUgoW

— House Committee on Agriculture (@HouseAgGOP) February 19, 2026

“Bayer said last August that it could be forced to stop U.S. production of the widely-used farming weedkiller unless regulatory changes are made to stave off litigation that has been weighing on the German company,” Weiss reported. “Bayer is the only company producing glyphosate in the United States but the farming sector there also imports large volumes of generic copies from China.”

MAHA, Environmental Groups Furious

The New York Times’ Hiroko Tabuchi and Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported that “the move immediately set off alarms among supporters of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement, and appeared to put Mr. Kennedy in an awkward position.”

“But in a statement issued through a spokesman Wednesday night, the health secretary said he supported the president,” Tabuchi and Stolberg reported. “‘Donald Trump’s executive order puts America first where it matters most — our defense readiness and our food supply,’ Mr. Kennedy said in the statement. ‘We must safeguard America’s national security first, because all of our priorities depend on it.'”

“Some of Mr. Kennedy’s supporters, as well as environmental groups, were furious,” Tabuchi and Stolberg reported. “‘MAHA voters were promised health reform, not chemical entrenchment,’ said Vani Hari, a healthy eating advocate and supporter of Mr. Kennedy’s nutrition agenda. She called the executive order ‘a direct assault on MAHA’ and ‘a gift to pesticide and chemical industry lobbies at the expense of human health.'”

“Ken Cook, the president and co-founder of Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization that has also supported parts of Mr. Kennedy’s agenda, said, ‘I can’t envision a bigger middle finger to every MAHA mom than this.'”