AgroPages Report: On February 18, 2026, Trump signed an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act, designating the element phosphorus and glyphosate-type herbicides as defense-critical materials. The order authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to determine national priorities and resource allocation, providing legal immunity (under Section 707 of the Defense Production Act) to domestic producers complying with the order, and explicitly requires that any implementing regulations not endanger the corporate viability of domestic producers.
This Cold War law, last heavily used during the pandemic — to ensure the domestic production of masks and ventilators — is being used this time to restrict the import of weed killers.
The order covers both phosphorus and glyphosate at the same time. Phosphorus is an element that is used as raw material for military smoke screens, flares, and components in semiconductor manufacturing, as well as a precursor chemical for glyphosate. In November 2025, the Ministry of Home Affairs had already listed phosphate as a critical mineral under the Energy Act of 2020. The combination of the two actions has explicitly elevated the strategic position of phosphorus in the US policy system to a higher level.
Why Bayer?
Understanding this executive order requires recognizing a fact: Bayer, through its subsidiary Monsanto, is the only domestic manufacturer of glyphosate in the United States. Not the largest, but the only one. Phosphorus mining in Soda Springs, Idaho; synthesis of active ingredients in Muscatine, Iowa; formulation in Luling, Louisiana—this entire domestic supply chain is in Bayer's hands, and if it breaks, it's gone. According to The Wall Street Journal, Bayer's U.S. factories produce about 40% of the global glyphosate supply. Of course, the U.S. market is not entirely dependent on Bayer—large quantities of generic glyphosate are imported from China, filling the capacity gap.
But over the past few years, Bayer's glyphosate business in the United States has been walking on a tightrope.
Lawsuits are the biggest source of stress. Since the 2018 purchase of Monsanto, glyphosate cancer lawsuits have grown like a snowball, with more than 60,000 still unresolved. CEO Bill Anderson called this an "existential threat" to the company, and it is not an exaggeration. In August 2025, Bayer came clean - it stated publicly that it might be forced to stop glyphosate production in the United States if the regulatory environment does not change.
Meanwhile, phosphorus mine supplies are also tightening. Bayer's Blackfoot Bridge mine near Soda Springs has exhausted its reserves, and the planned replacement, the Caldwell Canyon mine (expected to operate for 40 years), was ordered stopped by a federal judge in 2023 over environmental assessment issues. This has directly blocked the upstream raw material source. There is also a contradiction on the policy level: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. Secretary of Health under the Trump administration, was previously known for his anti-roundup stance, and supporters of the MAHA movement have been calling for a restriction on roundup use. This has left the industry in the dark about the direction of policy.
Intensive move-making within half a year
And then there's what happened in the last six months — look at the timeline:
October 2025 – BLM re-approves Bayer's Caldwell Canyon phosphate mine project (previously stopped by the court)
November 2025 – The Ministry of Interior adds phosphates to the list of critical minerals
February 17, 2026 – Monsanto announces a $7.25 billion class-action settlement covering non-Hodgkin lymphoma claims within 21 years.
February 18, 2026 - Trump signs executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to protect the production of glyphosate and phosphorus
April 2026 (expected) Supreme Court hears Durnell case, Trump administration has weighed in support of Bayer's federal pre-emptiveness position
Phosphorus mine approval, critical minerals identification, $7.25 billion settlement, executive order, Supreme Court case — these events occurred in quick succession over the past six months, forming a multi-layered protection net from upstream raw materials to litigation risks. Whether this was carefully planned or a coincidence, the combined effect is clear: The probability of Bayer退出 the US glyphosate market has significantly decreased.
Bayer's response and a silence
Monsanto's statement was restrained: the executive order " Heightened the urgent need for U.S. farmers to have access to critical crop protection tools produced domestically," the company said it would "comply." Bayer also emphasized through Reuters that the order would not lead to a shortage of glyphosate in other countries — a move to soothe the international market.
But one is silent and telling. When asked about the extent of Bayer's participation in the executive order-making process, the company did not respond. The Center for Food Safety's legal director, George Kimbrell, was more straightforward in his interpretation: He called the executive order a "transparent strategy to influence the Supreme Court decision."
Bayer's B plan: icafolin-methyl
The administrative order provided short-term protection, but Bayer is not putting all its eggs in the Roundup basket. The company has submitted registration applications for a new herbicide, icafolin-methyl, developed through its CropKey research platform, in the United States, the European Union, Brazil, and Canada. This move alone speaks volumes: even with the policy护城河, Bayer is already positioning itself to reduce its reliance on Roundup.
Support and opposition
The industry response was quick, and the分化of positions was also obvious.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-GA) called it an “important step” to ensure domestic supply of critical crop inputs. ARA President Daren Coppock was more practical: The executive order “helps to enhance farm-level certainty,” but the implementation process needs to “reflect the realities of the global supply chain” — a reference to avoiding a repeat of the 2017 rule. CropLife America, which represents companies that make agricultural products, weighed in on the science regulatory perspective, emphasizing that products are fully evaluated by the EPA.
The opposing side is also unambiguous. The Center for Food Safety believes that the executive order "has no legal effect and cannot arbitrarily grant immunity to Monsanto." Farm Action, which has long tracked Bayer's litigation immunity strategies—lobbying Congress, promoting state-level immunity bills, and threatening to halt production—views the executive order as the latest move in this combination of tactics. Ken Cook, President of the Environmental Working Group (EWG), was the most vocal, calling the executive order "the greatest insult to every MAHA mom."
Is the phosphate giant affected?
There is a concept that is prone to confusion. "Elemental phosphorus" in the administrative order is related to phosphate fertilizers but is not the same thing. P4 Production, under the Bayer umbrella, is the only US manufacturer of elemental phosphorus, which is processed from phosphate ore and used in the production of glyphosate. The landscape in the phosphate fertilizer sector, however, is very different: Mosaic and Nutrien together control more than 90% of US phosphate fertilizer sales. The administrative order does not directly bind these two companies, but the listing of phosphate as a critical mineral is a relevant upstream signal for the entire phosphate industry chain.
What does it mean for China's glyphosate exports?
The most immediate effect of the executive order is to consolidate Bayer's production footprint in the United States. But its impact on the global glyphosate market is more complex than it appears on the surface.
The policy intention is clear — to reduce reliance on foreign supplies, and the original text defines "further outsourcing of the defense supply chain" as a threat to national security. The approval of the Caldwell Canyon phosphate mine also points to self-sufficiency in raw materials in the medium to long term. If we only look at the policy direction, the space for China's imitation of glyphosate exports to the United States seems to be narrowing.
But reality is more complex than policy direction. China is the world's largest active ingredient base for glyphosate, supplying more than 70 percent of global production. Bayer's US capacity is not enough to meet all domestic demand, and new phosphate mines will take several years to go from approval to full production. In the last four months of 2024, US imports of glyphosate active ingredients from China increased by nearly 40 percent compared to the same period last year, before the tariffs on China took effect — a number that reflects the reliance on Chinese supplies. Looking back at the experience during Trump's first term, tariffs did not fundamentally change the global agchem purchasing pattern.
So the impact of the administrative order on China's glyphosate is indirect and contradictory: the policy direction is to reduce dependence, but the short-term reality is that it can't be done without it.
Four things more important than the executive order itself
The administrative order is a signal of market stability, but the real variables that could reshape the global glyphosate competitive landscape are not here:
Variable 1: Caldwell Canyon phosphate mine commissioning time
If fully commissioned at the end of this decade, it will fundamentally change Bayer's phosphorus supply self-sufficiency and strengthen the cost competitiveness of glyphosate in the US.
Variable 2: Supreme Court Durnell decision
If the federal pesticide labeling regime is found to preempt state law, it would significantly weaken the legal underpinnings of cancer litigation. The impact on Bayer goes far beyond the administrative order.
Variable 3: The Future of the China-US Tariff Agreement
The current agreement suspends higher reciprocity tariffs until November 2026. At that time, whether it is renewed, additional, or adjusted, it directly affects the cost structure of China's imitation glyphosate exports to the United States.
Variable 4: Icafolin-methyl registration progress
If this new herbicide, developed on the CropKey platform, is successfully approved and commercialized in major markets, it could potentially change the product competition dynamics in the herbicide market in the medium to long term.
This executive order, on the surface, is about the defense supply chain, but in essence, it is a comprehensive package of policies, judicial, and administrative. It sends two signals: the supply security of glyphosate and phosphorus is elevated to the level of national defense strategy, and the US government's willingness to maintain domestic agrochemical production capacity is serious.
But an executive order won't fix all of the structural problems with the glyphosate industry. Litigation pressure remains, resistance in weeds continues to spread, and consumer concerns about pesticide safety won't go away. For practitioners in the global agchem industry, the significance of this order lies not in what it solves, but in what it reveals: the deep contradictions within the U.S. glyphosate market, and the direction of the various game players around those contradictions.
