I asked the questions. Claude.ai wrote the article. Thanks Claude.ai.

In February 2026, President Trump signed an executive order that sent shockwaves through one of his most devoted constituencies. Invoking the Defense Production Act — a tool normally reserved for wartime — the order compelled the domestic production of glyphosate-based herbicides and elemental phosphorus, declaring shortages of both a risk to national security. It also granted legal immunity to domestic manufacturers compelled under that act to produce glyphosate-related products.

The timing was jarring. The order came one day after Bayer — the company that acquired Monsanto and now owns Roundup — proposed paying $7.25 billion to settle a wave of lawsuits alleging the herbicide causes cancer. One day. The ink on a settlement acknowledging mass harm was barely dry when the administration moved to protect the next generation of producers from similar accountability.

Who Is Bobby Kennedy in All of This?

To understand RFK Jr.’s position, you have to understand who he has been across his entire career — and who he is now.

As a trial lawyer, Kennedy in 2018 helped secure a landmark $289 million jury verdict against Monsanto, arguing the company knew glyphosate exposure increased cancer risk. He spent decades as one of the most prominent environmental attorneys in the country, fighting the very chemical industry now being protected by an order he publicly endorsed.

As recently as June 2024, while running for president, he posted that glyphosate is “one of the likely culprits in America’s chronic disease epidemic — much more widely used here than in Europe.” He promised that his USDA would ban its use as a desiccant on wheat. The MAHA Commission report he championed after taking office recommended increased scrutiny of pesticide residues like glyphosate, labeling them a major concern for children’s health.

So why did he endorse this order?

His stated reasoning was national security. Kennedy told Joe Rogan that industry reports show 99% of U.S. glyphosate supplies come from China, and that Department of Defense officials had warned this dependence poses an “extreme national security vulnerability” — that a supply disruption could cut off the food supply overnight. He elaborated on social media, writing that the U.S. represents 4% of the world’s population yet uses roughly 25% of its pesticides, and that if these inputs disappeared overnight, crop yields would fall, food prices would surge, and America would see a massive loss of farms.

His deeper position, though, came out when he was speaking more freely. On Rogan’s show, Kennedy said he was “not particularly happy, to put it mildly” with the executive order, and stated plainly: “I’ve spent 40 years fighting pesticides. Pesticides are poison.” He also expressed opposition to the Trump DOJ’s support for a separate case before the Supreme Court that would grant pesticide companies federal immunity from future liability — saying “they did something that I really don’t like.”

In a fuller statement posted to social media, Kennedy wrote: “Pesticides and herbicides are toxic by design, engineered to kill living organisms. When we apply them across millions of acres and allow them into our food system, we put Americans at risk. Chemical manufacturers have paid tens of billions of dollars to settle cancer claims linked to their products, and many agricultural communities report elevated” levels of disease. He then added: “We are now changing course — without destabilizing the food supply.”

That last phrase is the key to understanding his calculation. He sees himself navigating between two catastrophes: the long-term health catastrophe of glyphosate saturation, and the immediate catastrophe of a food system collapse if the chemical were suddenly removed. Whether one agrees with that calculus or not, it is not an incoherent position. It is the position of a man who chose to stay in a cabinet he doesn’t fully agree with, betting that he can do more good from inside.

He acknowledged this tension himself: “I also understand the president’s point of view. If you ban glyphosate overnight, or if you got rid of it, it would destroy the American food system.”

Is Anyone in the Administration Educating the Public About the Harm?

This is where the picture becomes genuinely mixed — and where there are real reasons for both concern and cautious hope.

On the concerning side, the Environmental Working Group has pressed the administration pointedly: where are the concrete plans Kennedy mentions? Who is developing them? Does the Agriculture Department formally agree that glyphosate should be phased out? Those questions remain largely unanswered.

On the hopeful side, Kennedy has not gone silent on the dangers. In his fuller defense of the executive order, he pointed to the administration’s commitment to regenerative agriculture — practices that enhance soil health and move away from chemical dependency — as a central pillar of the long-term strategy. He has consistently framed the executive order not as an endorsement of glyphosate but as a bridge measure while alternatives are developed.

A group of 241 MAHA activists wrote directly to Trump warning that creating broad liability protections for pesticides is “a losing issue for your party and your coalition, and may well cost you the House majority in the midterms.” That kind of organized pressure from within the coalition may be one of the most effective forces for keeping the administration’s feet to the fire.

The Larger Story

What this episode reveals is something older than any one executive order: the difficulty of changing a system that millions of farms, families, and supply chains depend on — even when that system is making people sick. As Kennedy himself put it to Joe Rogan, “We’ve addicted our farmers” to glyphosate. That addiction was built over decades of policy, subsidy, and industry capture. It will not be undone by one secretary of health, however passionate, working inside an administration with competing priorities.

For those of us who tend land differently — building soil rather than depleting it, choosing methods that work with creation rather than against it — this moment is a reminder that the work we do in our own places matters. Every acre farmed without glyphosate, every garden built on hugelkultur and deep relationship with the land, is a quiet argument that another way is possible. The political battles are real and worth watching. But the ground beneath our feet is where the change actually lives.