Introduction
On February 18, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to ensure an “adequate supply” of glyphosate-based herbicides like Roundup. The administration wants you to believe this is about protecting America from foreign adversaries. We want you to understand what it actually means: more Roundup in more waterways, and more dead frogs.
What The Executive Order Does
The executive order delegates authority to the Secretary of Agriculture to prioritize and allocate materials needed to ensure continued glyphosate production — and explicitly protects domestic producers from anything that might “place corporate viability at risk.” In plain English, it wraps a single chemical company’s business interests in the American flag and calls it national security.
Glyphosate is already the most widely used herbicide in the world. It doesn’t need federal protection — it needs scientific scrutiny.
What Roundup Does to Frogs
At SAVE THE FROGS!, we’ve been sounding the alarm on pesticides and amphibians for years. The science is not ambiguous.
Glyphosate and its commercial formulations like Roundup are acutely toxic to amphibians. Studies have documented that Roundup kills tadpoles at concentrations commonly found in agricultural runoff — concentrations that the EPA has long considered “safe.” Research published in peer-reviewed journals has shown that glyphosate disrupts hormone signaling in frogs, interferes with development, and weakens immune systems already under siege from chytrid fungus, the pathogen driving amphibian extinctions worldwide.
Frogs don’t read warning labels. They live in the water that drains from treated fields. They breathe through their skin. When glyphosate runs off into wetlands and streams — and it does, routinely — frogs absorb it directly. What happens next is not complicated: developmental abnormalities, population crashes, local extinctions.
Amphibians are already the world’s most threatened vertebrate group. One-third of all species face extinction. We do not have the ecological margin to flood their habitats with more herbicide.
The MAHA Contradiction
There’s an uncomfortable irony here that the administration hasn’t acknowledged. “Make America Healthy Again” is a stated White House priority. There’s even a MAHA Report — the Trump administration’s own May 2025 assessment of childhood health, which found that pesticides are detected at “alarming” levels in children and pregnant women, and specifically named glyphosate as a chemical of concern linked to reproductive disorders, developmental problems, and cancer. Agricultural industry lobbyists responded furiously, and by the time the final strategy report was released in September, every mention of glyphosate had been quietly erased. Now, five months later, the same administration has declared Roundup a matter of national security.
This is the same chemical that the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” The same chemical that has generated tens of thousands of cancer lawsuits against Bayer/Monsanto. The same chemical a federal court ruled the EPA improperly approved because it ignored cancer and endangered species risks. You can’t claim to want a healthier America and simultaneously declare Roundup a national security asset. These positions are irreconcilable.
What This Means Going Forward
By invoking the Defense Production Act, the Trump administration is signaling that it will prioritize glyphosate supply chains over environmental and health concerns — and that it will protect producers from regulations or court rulings that might slow production. At the same time, the EPA under this administration has shown little appetite for strengthening pesticide oversight.
This is the context in which frogs — and people — will likely be living for the next several years.
What You Can Do
Contact your representatives and urge them to oppose any rollback of pesticide oversight tied to this order. Support certified organic agriculture. And support SAVE THE FROGS! as we continue to document, publicize, and fight the chemical threats facing amphibians worldwide.
The executive order calls this a matter of national security. We’d call it a matter of priorities — and this administration’s are clear. It chose a chemical company’s balance sheet over the health of children, waterways, and wildlife. Frogs can’t lobby Congress. They can’t file lawsuits or hire consultants to soften the language in government reports. They can only absorb what is put into their world. What the Trump administration wants put into it now, increasingly and unfortunately, is Roundup — and they are making that choice with full knowledge of the consequences.
