October 02, 2025
Trump Administration Food Scorecard
By Michael F. Jacobson
In its first nine months in office, the Trump administration has probably devoted more attention to food and agriculture policies than any previous administration. Initiatives such as protecting kids from ultra-processed foods and reducing pesticide use, if implemented, would improve the public’s health. Many others, though, have been implemented and are undermining health, jeopardizing farmers’ livelihoods, and exacerbating hunger and suffering in the United States and abroad. Budget cuts, cancellation of contracts, and impoundments are crippling scientific research and harming the environment.
The Republican budget bill, passed on July 4, is resulting in major budget cuts that affect countless functions of government, including SNAP, Medicaid, and USAID. The FY2026 budget that Congress was considering (but is now causing a government shutdown) will have a huge effect on public health. Keep an eye on the administration’s expected revision of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which directly affects government food and feeding programs, as well as the general population.
Positive
Dates shown are for when events occurred or were reported in the media. Some sources cited require a subscription.
2/13/25 – President Trump creates the President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission, which initially will “address the childhood chronic disease crisis.”
4/7/25 – RFK Jr. encourages bans on ultra-processed foods in schools and on the use of SNAP benefits to purchase sugar drinks.
4/8/25 –USDA more than doubled compensation (from $7 per chicken to almost $17) to egg farmers for bird-flu affected farms, a huge increase for farms that as many as 5 million hens.
4/9/25 – RFK Jr. set a two-year deadline for companies to eliminate food dyes (though he did not initiate rulemaking to effectuate a ban).
4/22/25 – Because food dyes can trigger behavioral problems in children, FDA said it will ban two dyes (that are no longer used); it called on industry to voluntarily stop using the other six dyes that are widely used within four years. RFK Jr. called dyes “poisonous” and “toxic.”
4/22/25 – RFK Jr. used his bully pulpit to criticize sugar. He said (with no hint of exaggeration), “Sugar is poison…and Americans need to know that it’s poison.”
5/19/25, 5/23/25 – USDA allows Nebraska, Indiana, and Iowa to bar sugar-drink purchases with SNAP benefits. 6/10/25: USDA did the same for Arkansas, Idaho, and Utah.
5/22/25 – MAHA releases report on children’s health with remarkably critical and often perceptive comments about the poor state of children’s health, ultra-processed foods, environmental toxins, and corporate practices.
7/25/25 – FDA approves the safety of a cultivated chicken product, which could compete with conventional chicken. Believer Meats still needs USDA approval for inspection practices and labels.
9/22/25 – Administration partially reverses and loosens immigration policies to allow in more farm workers.
Negative
Dates shown are for when events occurred or were reported in the media. Some sources cited require a subscription.
3/2/25 – U.S. Department of Agriculture fires staff at the National Plant Germplasm System, a vast federal collection of seeds, roots, branches and stems that is a “living library” aimed at protecting against famine in the US and elsewhere.
3/7/25 – USDA eliminates the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection, which include outside experts and are parts of the US food-safety system.
3/10/25 – USDA kills two programs that gave schools and food banks $1 billion to buy food from local farms and ranchers.
3/17/25 – Secretary of HHS Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. lauds Steak ‘n Shake for replacing vegetable oil with beef tallow, increasing the risk of heart disease.
3/17/25 – USDA allows poultry and pork processing plants to accelerate line speeds, making it harder for food-safety inspectors to examine every carcass.
3/17/25 – 89 Food and Drug Administration staffers, including key technical experts, were fired, making it harder to keep food safe, honestly labeled.
3/19/25 – USDA halts $1.5 billion program that helped small farms and producers provide food to food banks and schools.
3/20/25 – Administration halts the 30-landmark year-long Diabetes Prevention Program.
3/20/25 – FDA postpones for 2½ years the implementation of a rule (required by the Food Safety Modernization Act) designed to speed the identification of tainted foods.
3/27/25 – RFK Jr. will fire 10,000 HHS employees, including 3,500 at the FDA. It is unclear yet how many will be in the agency’s food division.
3/28/25 – Inspired by RFK Jr., Utah is first state to ban fluoridation of drinking water, which protects against tooth decay.
3/28/25 – Administration seeks to end the US Agency for International Development, which has provided billions of dollars annually in food and other aid to needy countries.
4/2/25 – Of the 3,500 FDA staff fired earlier, including many senior officials, the Human Foods division lost about 280 out of about 1,000 employees. Thousands more were fired at CDC, NIH, and other health agencies. 4/25/25 – NYT: Some food-safety scientists were offered their jobs back.
4/3/25 NPR: After RFK Jr. had promised “radical transparency,” HHS gutted the offices that handle media relations and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests at FDA, CDC, NIH.
4/4/25: NYT: HHS rejects a Biden plan to require Medicare and Medicaid to cover obesity drugs.
4/7/25: NYT: RFK Jr. wages a three-day campaign in western states to end fluoridation of drinking water.
4/16/25 – Kevin Hall, the NIH researcher whose groundbreaking study found that a diet rich in ultra-processed foods leads to weight gain, was forced into early retirement.
4/23/25 – FDA commissioner Marty Makary falsely claimed that there “were not cuts to scientists, or reviewers, or inspectors. Absolutely none.”
4/24/25 – AP: USDA withdraws a plan to limit salmonella levels in raw poultry and prevent illnesses and deaths.
4/25/25 – Washington Post: RFK Jr. has said “When my uncle was president [1961-1963], 3 percent of Americans had chronic disease [such as heart disease, hypertension, liver cirrhosis, and other diet-related diseases]. Today, it’s 60 percent.” The figure of 3 percent is a gross understatement of the actual—about 45 percent—level.
April/June/2025 – EPA proposed approvals for four long-lasting fluorinated pesticides used on Romaine, corn, soybeans, peanuts, and other crops
7/4/25 – Trump signs a reconciliation bill that provides $67 billion to commodity (wheat, corn, etc.) farmers while cutting SNAP by about $190 billion over 10 years (states may partially make up for those cuts). SNAP’s nutrition education program was killed entirely. Medicaid benefits will be reduced by $1 trillion over the next decade, cutting health insurance for 10 million people and leading to hunger for many. A University of Pennsylvania study concluded that the SNAP cuts could cause more than 93,000 premature deaths between now and 2039.
7/18/25 – The Environmental Protection Agency is abolishing its Office of Research and Development, whose work underpins many federal environmental regulations. That inevitably will make it tougher to control contaminants in food and water.
7/24/25 – USDA will transfer almost half (2,000) of its 4,600 workers in Washington, DC, to five offices around the country. Many of those employees will quit, impairing the functioning of many food and farming programs.
9/1/25 – Cuts to SNAP went into effect. 2.4 million Americans, including families with kids, will lose all benefits in an average month. Families could lose $72 to $231 per month in support.
9/9/25 – Make Our Children Healthy Again report released: The problem is not what it says (often in vague terms) but what it fails to say: restrict usage of farm pesticides, restrict salt and sugar in processed foods, tax sugar drinks, fund major educational initiatives, or ban junk-food ads aimed at children. The report did not set an agenda to improve children’s health.
9/20/25 – USDA canceled the government’s annual report measuring household food insecurity. That will prevent the public from knowing the impact of cutting SNAP benefits.
9/25/25 – Trump administration declined to support the United Nations’ declaration on fighting chronic diseases. (The document was weakened by dropping support for taxes on alcohol and tobacco and by not mentioning sugar drinks at all.)
