Roundup Is Now a Matter of National Security (No, Really)

Weekly Deep Dive

Mar 04, 2026

Trump invokes wartime powers to protect Bayer’s herbicide empire. The MAHA crowd got played.

On Tuesday, Bayer announced a $7.25 billion settlement to resolve roughly 200,000 cancer lawsuits over its flagship weedkiller, Roundup. On Wednesday, President Trump signed an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to declare glyphosate (Roundup’s active ingredient) and elemental phosphorus “critical to the national defense.”

One day apart. What a coincidence.

What the Order Actually Does

The DPA order delegates sweeping authority to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins (in consultation with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth) to prioritize contracts, allocate materials, and issue orders related to phosphorus and glyphosate production. It explicitly instructs Rollins to ensure that no regulation “places the corporate viability of any domestic producer of elemental phosphorus or glyphosate-based herbicides at risk.”

Translation: the USDA is now legally required to protect Bayer’s bottom line.

The kicker is Section 707 immunity. The order grants DPA compliance immunity to domestic producers, meaning: “No person shall be held liable for damages or penalties for any act or failure to act resulting directly or indirectly from compliance” with government orders. Bayer’s cancer lawsuits could get a lot more complicated for plaintiffs.

There’s exactly one domestic producer of both elemental phosphorus and glyphosate in the United States: Bayer’s Monsanto subsidiary, operating out of a Superfund site in Soda Springs, Idaho. So when the White House says this order protects “domestic producers,” plural, it means one company. One German-owned company, to be precise.

The Phosphorus Fig Leaf

The phosphorus angle isn’t entirely manufactured. Elemental phosphorus is genuinely important for defense supply chains: smoke and illumination munitions, semiconductor manufacturing, lithium-ion batteries for weapons systems. The Department of Interior designated phosphate a critical mineral in November 2025. The US imports over 6 million kilograms annually because domestic production can’t keep up. China produces roughly 70% of the world’s glyphosate supply, so the supply chain vulnerability is real.

But here’s the trick. Phosphorus is the Trojan horse. You bundle a legitimate defense concern (phosphorus for munitions and chips) with a massively controversial herbicide (glyphosate for Bayer’s shareholders), and suddenly anyone who questions the glyphosate protection is “against national security.” Neat.

The Three-Front Bayer Bailout

This EO doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s one prong of a three-front legal strategy that would make any K Street lobbyist weep with pride:

Front 1: The Supreme Court. Bayer’s case Monsanto v. Durnell heads to oral arguments in April 2026. Bayer argues that EPA approval of Roundup’s label (no cancer warning required) preempts all state failure-to-warn lawsuits. The Trump administration’s Solicitor General filed a brief supporting Bayer, reversing the Biden-era position.

Front 2: State legislatures. Bayer has been lobbying state lawmakers to pass laws shielding pesticide makers from failure-to-warn lawsuits when their products follow federal labeling. North Dakota and Georgia already obliged.

Front 3: This executive order. DPA immunity, corporate viability protection, and the magic words “national security” attached to a product the WHO’s cancer research agency classified as “probably carcinogenic” in 2015.

The $7.25 billion settlement, announced one day before the executive order, suddenly looks less like accountability and more like the final piece of a carefully choreographed exit strategy. Pay a fraction of what juries have been awarding (some plaintiffs would get as little as $10,000), then slam the legal doors shut behind you.

The MAHA Betrayal

Remember Make America Healthy Again? The movement that rode to power on promises to confront pesticides, clean up the food supply, and hold agrochemical companies accountable?

RFK Jr. built his national profile partly by helping win a $289 million verdict against Monsanto for a man who developed cancer from Roundup. His MAHA movement frequently targeted glyphosate as a symbol of everything wrong with industrial agriculture.

So when Trump declared that same chemical a matter of national security, Kennedy’s response was... to issue a statement through a spokesman supporting the president. “Donald Trump’s executive order puts America first where it matters most,” Kennedy said, pivoting from cancer crusader to company man in a single press release.

His supporters noticed. “MAHA voters were promised health reform, not chemical entrenchment,” said Vani Hari, a Kennedy nutrition ally, calling the order “a direct assault on MAHA.” The Environmental Working Group’s Ken Cook was more blunt: “I can’t envision a bigger middle finger to every MAHA mom than this. President Trump just gave Bayer a license to poison people. Full stop.”

Cook’s harshest line? “MAHA supporters were promised reform, and instead, they’ve been treated by MAGA like a convenient group of useful idiots ever since Kennedy joined Trump on the campaign trail.”

Hard to argue with that assessment.

The Ratchet That Never Clicks Back

The Defense Production Act was passed in 1950 to mobilize American industry during the Korean War. Price controls, material allocations, the works. The Army War College has noted that the DPA “is much broader than its original purpose” and that scope creep has actually “weakened its ability to prepare” for actual military needs.

Trump alone has invoked it for mineral production, maritime industry, spent nuclear fuel, coal power plants, and now weedkiller. Each use stretches “national security” a little further. Each use sets the precedent for the next one. And emergency executive powers, once expanded, never contract. Name the last time a president voluntarily surrendered a power his predecessor claimed… take your time.

The same revolving door between government and agrochemical corporations that produced this order also produced the EPA’s finding that glyphosate doesn’t need a cancer warning, the Solicitor General’s brief backing Bayer at the Supreme Court, and now a Defense Production Act invocation protecting a single company’s “corporate viability.” The people writing these policies and the people profiting from them are, quite often, the same people. Or at least they attend the same dinner parties.

If the government can declare Roundup a matter of national security, what can’t it declare essential? Every expansion of “national defense” is another brick in the wall between you and the freedom to opt out.

The DPA was written to fight wars. Now it fights lawsuits. That should tell you everything about whose interests the government actually serves.