As some of you may have gleaned, I am not a big fan of our current president. However, while I do like some of President Trump’s policies, for the most part I find his environmental policies which include relaxing the pollution standards for waterways and air along with the cancellation of one of the largest federal court cases against the Denka Performance Elastomer Company in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley" over chloroprene emissions, bordering on insane. Additionally, adding to this insanity was his recent executive order relaxing the amount of mercury and other toxins emitted from coal burning power plants which are known to harm brain development in young children and lead to heart attacks and lung diseases in adults.
However, last week Trump even out did himself in failing to protect the health of U.S. citizens when by executive order he prioritized the U.S. production of the herbicide glyphosate and reduced the liabilities for companies producing this product.
In case you don’t know what glyphosate is it is the main ingredient in Roundup, and there are numerous studies supporting its link to cancer. The company, Monsanto, originally sold Roundup but was bought and merge with the German chemical producer Bayer in 2018 for $63 billion.
Despite the acquisition Bayer has struggled with thousands of lawsuits alleging Roundup's main ingredient, glyphosate, causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In addition to previous settlements, in 2025, a Georgia jury awarded $2.1 billion in a case highlighting the continued risks. And, in fact, as recently as February, 2026, a new proposed class action settlement of $7.25 billion will address some 65,000 pending lawsuits with the funds to be paid over 21 years. This latest settlement has led Bayer to consider taking Roundup off the public market completely.
However, what further underscores President Trump’s ill-conceived dangerous decision is the fact that as early as 2018, Germany, the home of Bayer, banned the use of glyphosate in public spaces, and implemented a total ban of its use at the beginning of 2019.
Sadly, in spite of all these factual warning signs, President Trump saw fit to use the Defense Production Act to justify this latest move, claiming it is in the interest of national security. The justification is, and I quote, it allows U.S. farmers to "efficiently and cost effectively produce food and livestock feed."
Ironically, it seems to me that the biggest threat to our national security is the herbicide itself since it is presently killing U.S. citizens.
Sometimes with the present folks in charge, it is the stuff that flies under the radar and doesn’t make headline news that are the biggest threats to ‘Making American Great Again.’ And if some of these executive orders seem counter-productive to what is best for the U.S., just follow the money trail, because that's always the bottom line with these folks.
