## Promoting the National Defense by Ensuring an Adequate Supply of Elemental Phosphorus and Glyphosate-Based Herbicides
Issued on February 18, 2026, this executive order invokes the Defense Production Act of 1950 to address what the administration characterizes as a critical national security vulnerability: the United States' near-total dependence on foreign sources for elemental phosphorus and its derivative, glyphosate-based herbicides. The order makes formal findings under Section 101(b) of the Defense Production Act that both materials meet the statutory criteria for resources critical to national defense—a designation that unlocks sweeping federal prioritization and allocation authorities applicable across the broader economy, not merely within government procurement. A key quantitative detail underscores the urgency: the United States has only a single domestic producer of both inputs, and more than 6,000,000 kilograms of elemental phosphorus are imported annually. Critically, the order treats food-supply security as a component of national defense rather than a secondary economic benefit—explicitly framing glyphosate-based herbicides as irreplaceable crop protection tools whose restriction would devastate farm economics and domestic food production. This framing materially broadens the order's scope beyond munitions and semiconductor supply chains to encompass agricultural productivity and food affordability, setting a notable precedent for applying defense authorities to domestic agricultural inputs.
The order's most consequential operational provision is its grant of Defense Production Act Section 101 authority to the Secretary of Agriculture to direct contract performance, and to prioritize and allocate materials, services, and facilities economy-wide to ensure adequate supply of these inputs. This is not a supply-chain support measure but a potentially interventionist resource-allocation authority with market-wide implications for defense, agriculture, and adjacent industrial users. The order explicitly supersedes relevant provisions of Executive Order 13603 (National Defense Resources Preparedness, 2012) by bypassing the existing interagency framework and vesting lead authority for a national-defense matter directly in the Secretary of Agriculture, who is directed to consult with the Secretary of War in determining nationwide priorities and allocations.
The governance structure carries significant strategic implications. The Secretary of Agriculture is empowered to issue binding orders, rules, and regulations, but is explicitly constrained from taking any action that would jeopardize the corporate viability of any domestic producer—a provision that effectively shields the sole domestic supplier from regulatory risk and signals the administration's intent to preserve the existing producer base. This constraint may limit how aggressively the government can deploy DPA authorities and narrows future policy options. The order extends statutory immunity under Section 707 of the Defense Production Act to covered producers, mandates their compliance under 7 CFR Part 789, assigns publication costs to the Department of Agriculture, and took effect upon signing on February 18, 2026, subject to the availability of appropriations.