President Trump speaks to reporters during a March 13, 2025, meeting at the White House in Washington. President Trump has repeatedly said he’ll take on toxic chemicals — but many of his administration’s actions are expected to allow for more pollution, not less.
During his joint address to Congress earlier this month, Trump talked about a boy whose cancer he blamed on a chemical exposure, saying that reversing the rise in child cancer rates in recent decades is “one of the top priorities for our new presidential commission to Make America Healthy Again.”
“Our goal is to get toxins out of our environment, poisons out of our food supply and keep our children healthy and strong,” he added.
More broadly, Trump has adopted his Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” slogan — saying he’ll take on toxic substances that threaten Americans’ well-being.
“President Trump’s agenda is proof that we can restore American energy dominance while advancing environmental stewardship. President Trump is committed to replacing unclean foreign energy with the liquid gold under our feet while Making America Healthy Again by ridding our environment, water, and food supply of dangerous toxins,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in an email.
Weeks into Trump’s second term, the Department of Health and Human Services does appear poised to move toward chemical regulation in food.
Kennedy said this week that the administration would “explore potential rulemaking” in response to a loophole that currently allows companies to put chemicals in food without telling regulators.
But the administration has also taken significant steps to abandon or roll back efforts to reduce exposure to potentially toxic substances.
Last week, it dropped a lawsuit that aimed to force a company to reduce its emissions of a substance the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers likely to cause cancer in an already highly polluted area.The administration also indicated that it is likely to reduce the stringency of safety screenings for potentially harmful chemicals. Among the chemicals that are currently undergoing the screening process is vinyl chloride , a toxic substance used to make PVC plastic that was released, along with […]
While Trump pledges to combat toxics, his EPA moves to loosen chemical rules
