America’s food-makers have a message for President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers: You must choose between Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s agenda and ours.
Since Trump teamed up with Kennedy to win the 2024 election and made him Health secretary, the GOP’s traditional allies in the food industry have mostly stood down as Kennedy called their products poison and blamed them for chronic disease. They aren’t standing down anymore.
“Anytime that you're increasing the regulatory burden or changing a system…you end up driving up the cost of the product,” said Jay Timmons, CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers. In a new video and report titled “Manufacturers Feed America” shared first with POLITICO, NAM warns the food industry is “under increasing strain” and federal and state rules targeting ingredients “risk undermining the system.”
NAM is demanding national uniform standards and a seat at the table on policies stemming from Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again agenda. Last year, Timmons warned the White House strategy on MAHA would “take America in the wrong direction.” Food and beverage companies make up the largest segment of NAM’s membership, which includes jam-maker Smucker’s, spice- and condiment-maker McCormick & Co., and the maker of processed meats Smithfield Foods, among other iconic American names.
The NAM campaign is the latest escalation from the food industry against Kennedy and his MAHA movement’s efforts to target their ingredients. It underscores how companies are exploiting Republican vulnerabilities on the economy in an effort to push their agenda ahead of the November midterm elections, which will shape Trump’s influence for the remainder of his term.
Midterm pressures have prompted the Trump administration in recent weeks to recalibrate its messaging on MAHA. On Feb. 18, Trump signed an executive order to boost glyphosate production, a weedkiller that a Kennedy-backed White House report last year linked to cancer. Kennedy has also embarked on a messaging blitz, touting the administration’s new dietary guidelines and drug pricing deals while talking less about his efforts to downsize the vaccine schedule. He has endorsed a Super Bowl ad paid for by the MAHA Center featuring boxer Mike Tyson and the slogan “Eat Real Food.”
The food industry’s decision to go public with its concerns could complicate the administration’s plans.
Timmons, whose days in Republican politics go back to a time years before Trump took over the party, is pointing out that Trump’s longstanding promise to rebuild America’s factory towns conflicts with Kennedy’s goals.
Kennedy wants to end a rule that has allowed food-makers to add new ingredients to products without regulatory scrutiny and has pushed states to regulate ingredients, leaving a patchwork of rules for manufacturers to comply with.
That’s a business killer, Timmons said. “Any small change in costs or potential costs can be extraordinarily disruptive. It can result in a lack of food supply. It can result in a lack of additional investment, and that's not what we want to see.”
The manufacturers’ group, long a stalwart ally of Republicans in Washington, is not the only business lobby that’s had enough. The NAM video includes statements from the Consumer Brands Association, the American Beverage Association, and the American Frozen Food Institute.
“We must focus on national uniform design…because when policymakers work with our industry, we can continue to feed the country in ways that strengthen the U.S. food system,” said Leslie Sarasin, CEO of the Food Industry Association, in the video.
Kennedy’s shown little deference to the food-makers’ concerns and said he thinks the deference policymakers have shown them in the past was a byproduct of the Washington swamp. Last year, for example, he told the House Appropriations Committee he wanted his agencies to research links between food and disease and said government officials had “buried” the data “because they didn't want to offend large industries who are putting these poisons in our food.”
In his State of the Union address last month, Trump didn’t mention anything along those lines. Rather, he sought to neutralize Democrats’ attacks on affordability. He boasted about dropping prices and blamed Democrats for inflation. “We are doing really well. Those prices are plummeting downward,” he said. But polls show increasing voter frustration over the high cost of living, and manufacturing employment has dipped since Trump first took office.
November’s POLITICO Poll with Public First found Americans across demographics rank cost of living as the nation’s top problem, with 45 percent naming grocery prices as their “most challenging” expense, surpassing housing and health care costs. While inflation has eased slightly, the annual food inflation rate has outpaced overall inflation and is running higher than when Trump took office.
Besides shifting its messaging, the administration has shaken up the org chart at the Health and Human Services Department. HHS and White House officials have attributed recent changes to a desire to focus on matters of broad appeal ahead of the midterm elections.
States are following Kennedy’s command to target the food industry. A POLITICO analysis in August found more than a hundred bills were introduced to crack down on ingredients last year, a fivefold increase from the previous year.
Last fall, more than three dozen food companies and trade associations, including NAM, launched Americans for Ingredient Transparency, warning the patchwork of state laws will increase grocery bills.
The group has launched a six-figure ad campaign, commissioned a survey from Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio and Bob Ward, and hired former Republican congressional staffer Julie Gunlock and former special assistant to Trump Andy Koenig as senior advisers. They also hired Policy Navigation Group to work on a report showing state ingredient laws will raise prices. Eight other members of Americans for Ingredient Transparency were included in NAM’s new video, including the Consumer Brands Association, American Beverage Association, the Food Industry Association, the Meat Institute, and the Corn Refiners Association.
NAM also launched a five-figure ad campaign in September promoting the food industry’s role in “lowering costs” and “enhancing consumer choice.”
“If they ignore science, and they get wrapped up in an aspirational rhetoric without the science… it is a risk to what I think is the ultimate goal of this president, which is more investment, more jobs and higher wage growth for manufacturers,” said Timmons. A longtime Washington lobbyist, Timmons previously led the National Republican Senatorial Committee and served as chief of staff to former Sen. George Allen (R-Va.).
AFIT said a “uniform national standard” was “the best way to implement the MAHA agenda while keeping costs low.”
While economists interviewed by POLITICO said the state patchwork of food rules could raise prices, they cautioned the impact was minimal compared to the Trump administration’s tariff threats and immigration policies.
MAHA activists and consumer advocacy groups have warned against a national standard, arguing it will result in weaker rules. Only Congress can preempt the states. Kennedy told Bloomberg last year that a national standard was “on the table for discussion.”
NAM’s call for a single standard arrives at an emboldened time for industry and when the MAHA movement has hit a crossroads following the administration’s about-face on glyphosate. The Food and Drug Administration also recently reversed its decision to reject Moderna’s flu vaccine application following pressure from the White House.
“It's important that the administration recognizes the business and economic realities that underpin some of the decisions that they're making and the way that the industry operates,” said Charles Crain, NAM’s managing vice president of policy. “To the extent that policymaking flows from the business realities that are reflected in that supply chain, we think that is moving in the right direction.”
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