WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday re-approved the use of pesticide dicamba for spraying on top of genetically modified cotton and soybean crops, drawing swift backlash from environmental groups and the Make America Healthy Again movement.
The move comes despite federal courts in 2020 and 2024 striking down the Environmental Protection Agency’s previous approvals of the contentious weedkiller.
“This decision responds directly to the strong advocacy of America’s cotton and soybean farmers, particularly growers across the Cotton Belt, who have been clear and consistent about the critical challenges they face without access to this tool for controlling resistant weeds in their growing crop,” the EPA said in a statement.
A persistent concern about dicamba is “drift“: when the chemical volatilizes in high heat it can spread for miles, poisoning other farms, home gardens as well as trees and plants.
The 2020 court ruling that first overturned dicamba’s approval found it caused damage across millions of acres and “has torn apart the social fabric of many farming communities.”
The EPA acknowledged this concern as real but said that by imposing certain restrictions, such as reducing the amount used and avoiding application in higher temperatures, it was safe.
Agricultural industry giant Bayer, which acquired dicamba when it bought Monsanto, welcomed the news and said the chemical would be marketed under the name “Stryax.”
“With a federal registration in hand, we’ll begin the process of seeking state approvals,” said Ty Witten, the company’s vice president of commercial stewardship, in a statement.
“In the coming weeks, we’ll launch applicator training opportunities, and stewardship education to help ensure that growers and applicators have the best experience possible with Stryax herbicide.”
Lobbyists turned regulators
Environmental advocates dismissed the safeguards as insufficient — pointing out, for example, the new approval allowed year-round use, including in the hottest summer months.
“They’re clearly looking out for the interests of polluting companies much more than the interests of the public, and this is because this office is being run by former industry lobbyists,” Nathan Donley, environmental health science director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said.
Kyle Kunkler, a former lobbyist for the American Soybean Association, is now the deputy assistant administrator for pesticides in the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.
The decision also rattled MAHA activists — supporters of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Kelly Ryerson, who last year started a petition calling for EPA administrator Lee Zeldin to resign over pesticide approvals, said she was “very disappointed.”
“This is clearly the work of the chemical lobbyists who now are staffed throughout the EPA and are not aligned with the MAHA movement or with President Trump’s mandate,” she said.
Alexandra Munoz, a molecular toxicologist who works at times with the MAHA movement, also criticized the move.
“EPA’s approval for over-the-top application of dicamba will result in poisonous drift that will damage American farmland, moving us farther away from a future where regenerative agriculture can thrive.”
“This decision is not what is needed to make America healthy again,” she said.
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Trump administration re-approves twice-banned pesticide
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Trump administration re-approves twice-banned pesticide
- Draws swift backlash from environmental groups and the Make America Healthy Again movement
- The move comes despite federal courts in 2020 and 2024 striking down previous approvals
Donald Trump, once unstoppable, hits snag after snag ahead of State of the Union address
- The US president is unlikely to back down in his State of the Union address
- His boasts will have less sting on Democrats, and world leaders, who have been bulldozed by his agenda
WASHINGTON: For a year, Donald Trump has governed the United States with little standing in his way.
Now, as the president prepares for his State of the Union address on Tuesday, he’s weighed down with Supreme Court reversals on tariffs, souring public opinion on his immigration crackdown and mounting economic concerns.
Trump is unlikely to back down in his speech, a primetime American political institution where the president is invited by Congress to present his accomplishments and lay out his agenda.
But his boasts will have less sting on Democrats — and world leaders — who have up to this point been bulldozed by his agenda.
On Friday, the Supreme Court delivered a sharp rebuke of his use of tariffs, which he slapped on countries often arbitrarily via a simple order on social media in an effort to gain leverage over diplomatic matters sometimes wholly unrelated to trade.
The same day, the government data showed the US economy expanded at a 1.4 percent annual rate in the October to December period — significantly below the 2.5 percent pace that analysts had forecasted for the quarter.
Polls meanwhile show growing dissatisfaction with the cost of living as well as Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
Cost-of-living concerns
Trump’s strategy so far on inflation has been to cede no ground.
“I’ve won affordability,” Trump said during a speech in the southeastern state of Georgia on Thursday.
But “you cannot out-message the economy. People know what they are spending,” Todd Belt, a political science professor at George Washington University, said.
“People become very resentful when being told something they know is not true,” he said — which applies to both the cost of living but also the crackdown on immigrants, which many Americans had falsely believed would focus on deporting violent criminals.
American voters have proven extremely sensitive to economic issues, which in part sunk Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden but now threaten Republicans.
As midterms approach in November, the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate will be up for grabs.
Trump has already warned that if Democrats take control they could try to impeach him.
Backing down?
Even the normally bombastic Trump has been cowed in recent days, including when a racist video of Barack Obama — the country’s first Black president — was posted onto his Truth Social account.
The White House tried to brush off the issue before claiming that an unnamed aide posted it, as even loyal members of Congress broke ranks to criticize the president.
After federal immigration agents shot and killed two US citizens during their wide-sweeping operations in Minneapolis, the administration announced it was scaling back the deployment in the city, which was the scene of mass protests.
On the international scene, a US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss Washington’s security concerns in the Arctic, but Trump has had to dial back his threats to seize Greenland.
He has imposed an across-the-board 10 percent tariff on imports into the United States after the Supreme Court rebuffed his previous tariffs Friday — but that still means some nations are now trading at reduced rates than they had agreed to under his previous levies.
The administration has vowed to find other ways to implement tariffs as it decried the court’s “lawlessness.”
In the meantime, challenges to Trump’s policies are slowly winding their way through the courts.
But while Trump has been chastened, the House and the Senate still remain in Republican control — for now. And Trump himself will be in the White House until 2029.
Now, as the president prepares for his State of the Union address on Tuesday, he’s weighed down with Supreme Court reversals on tariffs, souring public opinion on his immigration crackdown and mounting economic concerns.
Trump is unlikely to back down in his speech, a primetime American political institution where the president is invited by Congress to present his accomplishments and lay out his agenda.
But his boasts will have less sting on Democrats — and world leaders — who have up to this point been bulldozed by his agenda.
On Friday, the Supreme Court delivered a sharp rebuke of his use of tariffs, which he slapped on countries often arbitrarily via a simple order on social media in an effort to gain leverage over diplomatic matters sometimes wholly unrelated to trade.
The same day, the government data showed the US economy expanded at a 1.4 percent annual rate in the October to December period — significantly below the 2.5 percent pace that analysts had forecasted for the quarter.
Polls meanwhile show growing dissatisfaction with the cost of living as well as Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
Cost-of-living concerns
Trump’s strategy so far on inflation has been to cede no ground.
“I’ve won affordability,” Trump said during a speech in the southeastern state of Georgia on Thursday.
But “you cannot out-message the economy. People know what they are spending,” Todd Belt, a political science professor at George Washington University, said.
“People become very resentful when being told something they know is not true,” he said — which applies to both the cost of living but also the crackdown on immigrants, which many Americans had falsely believed would focus on deporting violent criminals.
American voters have proven extremely sensitive to economic issues, which in part sunk Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden but now threaten Republicans.
As midterms approach in November, the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate will be up for grabs.
Trump has already warned that if Democrats take control they could try to impeach him.
Backing down?
Even the normally bombastic Trump has been cowed in recent days, including when a racist video of Barack Obama — the country’s first Black president — was posted onto his Truth Social account.
The White House tried to brush off the issue before claiming that an unnamed aide posted it, as even loyal members of Congress broke ranks to criticize the president.
After federal immigration agents shot and killed two US citizens during their wide-sweeping operations in Minneapolis, the administration announced it was scaling back the deployment in the city, which was the scene of mass protests.
On the international scene, a US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss Washington’s security concerns in the Arctic, but Trump has had to dial back his threats to seize Greenland.
He has imposed an across-the-board 10 percent tariff on imports into the United States after the Supreme Court rebuffed his previous tariffs Friday — but that still means some nations are now trading at reduced rates than they had agreed to under his previous levies.
The administration has vowed to find other ways to implement tariffs as it decried the court’s “lawlessness.”
In the meantime, challenges to Trump’s policies are slowly winding their way through the courts.
But while Trump has been chastened, the House and the Senate still remain in Republican control — for now. And Trump himself will be in the White House until 2029.
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