Trump Just Gave Legal Immunity to Corporations That Poison America’s Food Supply
Of all the outrageous backflips Trump has made since retaking office for a second term, this one may be the most sickening — a complete betrayal of ‘MAHA.’
President Donald Trump just ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to make more poisonous glyphosate, while granting legal protection for makers of proven-dangerous herbicides like Monsanto’s Roundup.
Invoking the Defense Production Act, 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 while also granting producers of these chemicals legal immunity from any lawsuits resulting from damage their products may cause to Americans’ health.
This is no different than the federal government granting legal immunity to vaccine makers during the Reagan administration, and we see how well that has worked out.
Progressive Farmer’s Chris Clayton reported:
“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. 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.”
Glyphosate is the leading ingredient in the popular commercial weedkiller Roundup. It’s been proven in multiple studies to cause cancer and other hideous health problems. Variants of this chemical are also used by the military to kill vegetative growth in areas targeted for attack.
Remember what Trump’s team was saying about these poisons during its campaign? Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was supposed to save us from the poisons being dumped into our foods, which are far and above what’s allowed in just about any other civilized country.
Take for example the tweet from Kennedy below, which he posted in June 2024:
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, of course, applauded the move, as it has been lobbying hard for less regulation in the use of these dangerous herbicides.
Kennedy, meanwhile, has been exposed as either a fraud or a man who has virtually no power within this administration to influence policy.
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’s executive order, which indicates he is indeed a fraud who never cared about making Americans healthy again.
“‘Donald Trump’s executive order puts America first where it matters most — our defense readiness and our food supply,” Kennedy said in the statement. “We must safeguard America’s national security first, because all of our priorities depend on it.”
What a sneaky way for this administration to hide its support for Big Agriculture’s assault on our health, to make it a matter of “national security.” I have a question for Mr. Kennedy: Who cares about national security if we are all going to die prematurely of cancer?
The New York Times report adds:
“Some of Mr. Kennedy’s supporters, as well as environmental groups, were furious. ‘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.’”