History doesn’t repeat itself perfectly, but in markets, it often rhymes with uncanny precision. From the chaos of the COVID-19 collapse to the present-day geopolitical tremors, one principle continues to stand tall: markets climb the wall of worry.

Cast your mind back to early 2020. The Nifty scaled highs in January, attempted to reclaim momentum in February, but failed to print a new all-time high. What followed was one of the sharpest drawdowns in market history. On 23rd March 2020, the index marked its lowest closing level amid panic, forced liquidations, and a complete breakdown in visibility.

Two days later, on 25th March 2020, India entered a nationwide lockdown. Economic activity came to a grinding halt. There was no clarity on earnings, no roadmap for recovery, and no timeline for normalization. If ever there was a moment for markets to stay depressed, this was it.

However, markets had other plans.

Even before earnings visibility improved or economic indicators stabilized, equities began their ascent. By the time India initiated its first vaccination phase in January 2021, the Nifty was already trading at all-time highs. The message was clear: markets discount the future not the present. They had already priced in the worst of the fall and the hope of recovery, long before it became visible in data.

Earnings Collapse vs Market Resilience

The divergence between fundamentals and price action was stark.

In Q1 FY2020-21, companies reported multi-quarter lows in revenue growth, as reflected in the financial results of 489 companies (excluding financial sector entities). Aggregate revenues contracted by 31.1% YoY, with consumer-facing sectors plunging nearly 49%.Profitability margins compressed significantly due to fixed overheads and negligible revenues.

On paper, it was one of the weakest earnings seasons in decades.

Yet, the market remained largely unfazed.

Why? Because by then, the market had already discounted the collapse. Investors were looking ahead—to reopening, recovery, and normalization. The pain was visible in earnings, but the hope was already embedded in prices.

2020: Crash & Recovery

2026 Volatility: Market Rebounds amid Uncertainty

2026: A Familiar Pattern Emerges

Fast forward to 2026, and the pattern appears eerily similar.

The Nifty once again peaked in January 2026, attempted to reclaim those levels in February, but failed to make a fresh high. Then came the trigger; escalation of the US-Iran conflict starting 28th February 2026. Risk-off sentiment gripped global markets, leading to a sharp correction.

By 30th March 2026, the market marked its lowest close in the current cycle.

Since then, however, the index has staged a meaningful recovery retracing nearly half of its losses. This, despite the fact that there is no conclusive geopolitical resolution, no clear peace agreement, and continued uncertainty around crude prices, inflation, and earnings.

More interestingly, the downside momentum has started to fade. Markets are no longer reacting with the same intensity to negative developments.

The Silent Force: Investor Behaviour

Perhaps the most compelling shift this time lies beneath the surface in investor behavior.

In March 2026, while the Nifty declined by 11.31%, flows into equity mutual funds told a completely different story. Growth and equity-oriented schemes witnessed inflows of ₹40,450 crore a 56% surge month-on-month, marking the highest level in eight months.

This is not just liquidity, it is learning in action.

Investors, shaped by the experiences of 2020, appear to have internalized a critical market truth: periods of maximum fear often coincide with phases of maximum opportunity. Instead of retreating, capital is stepping in.

What Lies Ahead?

It would be premature and perhaps imprudent to conclude that markets are poised for an uninterrupted upside. The current environment remains fragile. Geopolitical risks persist, inflationary pressures are building, and crude disruptions could weigh on corporate earnings.

Markets can very well retest lower levels.

But what recent price action indicates is equally important: the market may have already begun discounting a significant portion of the risk.

Just as in 2020, when earnings collapsed but markets rallied, today’s environment presents a similar dichotomy; weak near-term visibility, but improving forward expectations.

The Core Insight

Markets don’t wait for clarity, they move ahead of it. Across cycles, from the 2020 pandemic crash to the 2026 geopolitical tensions, one pattern remains clear: when uncertainty peaks, markets begin to stabilize before fundamentals improve. Recovery is driven not by the absence of risk, but by its early pricing.

Today, despite elevated risks of war, inflation, and earnings pressure, market reactions are softening, indicating much of the fear may already be discounted. This isn’t a call for immediate upside, as volatility can persist. However, history shows markets lead sentiment.

By the time certainty emerges, prices have adjusted quietly climbing the wall of worry.

The Bitcoin and Ethereum prices are down today as the crypto market remains in a phase of extreme fear. This latest crash came amid BlackRock’s move, which sparked fear of a sell-off from the world’s largest asset manager. 

The Bitcoin and Ethereum prices are down today following BlackRock’s transfer of 2,257 BTC and 74,973 ETH to Coinbase, indicating plans to offload these coins. Notably, the BTC and ETH ETFs recorded outflows on December 16, likely why the asset manager moved these coins to redeem shares for its IBIT and ETHA ETFs, which were sold that day. 

Bitcoin and Ethereum Prices Decline Amid BlackRock’s Transfer

These Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs have continued to record mixed flows, which have partly contributed to declines in BTC and ETH prices. Notably, the Bitcoin price had surged to around $90,000 yesterday from an intraday low of around $87,000, before retracing below $87,000 about an hour later. This immediately sparked theories of manipulation, with some crypto pundits revealing that BlackRock wasn’t the only one selling. 

Related Reading: The Bearish Structure That Puts Bitcoin Price At $92,550, And Then $82,000

Crypto pundit Kruse claimed that Binance first bought nonstop for over 30 minutes to pump the price, then started dumping millions of BTC and ETH to liquidate longs. He noted that the Bitcoin price pumped about $3,300 in 30 minutes, with $106 million in shorts wiped out during that period. 

Following that, BTC printed another volatile hourly candle to the downside, which flushed out $52 million in longs. A similar price action had also played out for the Ethereum price. Kruse declared that this wasn’t random volatility but rather liquidity hunting. The pundit further warned that this is how leverage gets punished in crypto. He then reiterated that the volatile Bitcoin and Ethereum price actions weren’t random, indicating the market is being manipulated. 

Onchain Sleuth Tracer also accused Binance of being responsible for the Bitcoin and Ethereum price declines. He claimed that the crypto exchange pumped and dumped millions of BTC to liquidate traders, with $194 million in shorts and longs liquidated in one hour. 

BTC And ETH To Hit New All-Time Highs Next Year?

Crypto asset manager Bitwise has predicted that the Bitcoin price will break the four-year cycle and set new all-time highs in 2026. The asset manager alluded to factors such as the Bitcoin halving and interest rate cycles as what will drive this rally for the flagship crypto. The firm also remarked that crypto booms and busts fueled by leverage are weaker than in past cycles. 

Related Reading

Bitwise also stated that institutions are likely to allocate more to Bitcoin ETFs, which is why they expect the Bitcoin price to reach new all-time highs next year. Furthermore, the firm noted that the pro-crypto regulatory shift will continue to allow companies to adopt crypto at a faster rate. The crypto asset manager also predicted that the Ethereum price could reach a new all-time high if the CLARITY Act passes.

Featured image from iStock, chart from Tradingview.com

Four months ago, industry veterans were debating whether AI shopping agents could disrupt Amazon and Walmart’s dominance. Today, those same retailers are racing to build the infrastructure that makes those agents possible. That’s how quickly this is moving.

For the past 25 years, the retail website has been sacred territory. Brands controlled the narrative, captured data, and converted browsers into buyers. AI shopping agents are about to do to websites what e-commerce did to storefronts: not eliminate them, but fundamentally transform their purpose.

Analyzing over 20 million AI shopping agent conversations revealed an unmistakable pattern. Consumers aren’t just experimenting with conversational commerce; they prefer it for the purchases that matter most. In electronics alone, buyers ask 50% more questions before purchasing than in any other category. When retailers deploy AI shopping agents for these complex products, they’re seeing 25% engagement rates and conversion lifts 10 times higher than traditional website experiences.

High-consideration purchases—the ones that drive the most margin and require the most customer service resources—are already moving to conversational interfaces. Your laptop buyers, your furniture shoppers, your customers researching the perfect gift aren’t browsing product grids anymore. They’re asking questions, comparing features in natural language, and expecting instant, intelligent guidance.

I recently watched this shift play out in real time. At a summit of 50+ retail executives from brands like Wayfair, Lenovo, and Foot Locker, we held a live debate: Will AI agents replace websites within 10 years? Initially, 82% of the room defended the website as irreplaceable. After hearing the evidence on engagement data, conversion metrics, and the changing consumer behavior, sentiment shifted enough that the pro-agent argument won. These retail veterans recognized that AI is fundamentally separating two functions their websites have always combined: discovery and transaction.

Your website will still exist a decade from now. But it won’t be the only transaction engine. It will be your brand showcase, your content hub, your trust-building destination. Meanwhile, the actual shopping, including the research, comparison, and purchase consumers make, will increasingly happen in AI agent environments, whether that’s ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or brand-owned conversational experiences.

Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT are all rolling out or experimenting with features that enable AI agents to handle ecommerce transactions without users ever leaving the platform. When a consumer can research products, compare options, read synthesized reviews, and complete purchases all within a single conversational thread, navigating to multiple websites, opening countless tabs, and hunting through product filters becomes unnecessary friction.

Forward-thinking retailers who understand this shift are already building what I call “agentic infrastructure.” These are the systems, data architecture, and conversational capabilities that let AI agents access their catalog, understand their brand voice, and transact on behalf of customers. They’re treating AI shopping agents the way forward-thinking retailers treated ecommerce 25 years ago.

That comparison matters. In 2000, when Ralph Lauren invested $200 million in ecommerce, a headline in the (print) Daily Mail declared the internet was “just a passing fad.” The move seemed risky. A decade later, that bet continued to pay off as the brand was “recession proof”  and its digital dominance continues through today. The current AI moment demands similar courage, and the stakes are just as high.

There are no experts in AI commerce yet. We’re all builders in these early days, testing hypotheses and learning what works. But some retailers are testing, iterating, and gathering insights from every conversation their AI agents have, while others are waiting for certainty that will never come. The gap between those two groups will determine who owns the next decade of retail.

The data coming from early AI shopping agent deployments tells a clear story. When purchases require careful consideration, consumers increasingly prefer conversational commerce over self-service browsing. They want to ask follow-up questions and have comparisons explained in plain language. They want the kind of guided shopping experience that mimics a knowledgeable store associate, not a product database. And they want it on demand, not just during business hours. Your website can’t deliver that experience. An AI agent can.

Consumer behavior and the technology giants investing billions in AI commerce have already written the script. Twenty-five years ago, retailers who dismissed ecommerce as a fad learned an expensive lesson. Today, the retailers who dismiss conversational commerce as hype will learn the same one. The difference: the window to experiment, learn, and build is shorter. AI is moving faster than the web ever did.

Your website isn’t disappearing. But if you think the version of it that has worked for the past 10 years will work in the next five years, you’re betting against how your customers want to shop.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

The S&P 500 slid 0.6% in its latest up-and-down day after erasing a morning gain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 301 points, or 0.7%, and the Nasdaq composite lost 0.5%.

Zions Bancorp. tumbled 13.1% after the bank said its profit for the third quarter will take a hit because of a $50 million charge-off related to loans made to a pair of borrowers. Zions said it found “apparent misrepresentations and contractual defaults” by the borrowers and several people who guaranteed the loans, along with “other irregularities.”

Another bank, Western Alliance Bancorp, dropped 10.8% after saying it has sued a borrower, alleging fraud. It also said it’s standing by its financial forecasts given for 2025.

Scrutiny is rising on the quality of loans that banks and other lenders have broadly made following last month’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing of First Brands Group, a supplier of aftermarket auto parts. The question is whether the hiccups are just a collection of one-offs or a signal of something larger threatening the industry.

Thursday’s swings on Wall Street, where the Dow bounced from an early gain of 169 points to an afternoon loss of 472, fit the pattern of the week for stocks. They’ve been shaky since the end of last week, when President Donald Trump shattered a monthslong calm in the U.S. stock market by threatening much higher tariffs on China.

Thursday’s swoon erased an early morning gain driven by an encouraging signal about the artificial-intelligence boom.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. reported a bigger jump in profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Chief Financial Officer Wendell Huang also said TSMC expects “continued strong demand for our leading-edge process technologies” going into the end of the year.

That’s important for the U.S. stock market because TSMC is a critical player in the AI frenzy, making chips for such companies as Nvidia. And Nvidia and other AI stocks have been central to Wall Street’s surge to records this year, even though inflation is still high and the job market is slowing.

AI-related stocks have shot so high that critics worry about a possible bubble, like the one that imploded for dot-com stocks in 2000.

U.S. companies broadly are under pressure to deliver stronger profits after the S&P 500 surged 35% from a low in April. To justify those gains, which critics say made their stock prices too expensive, companies will need to show they’re making much more in profit and will continue to do so.

Travelers dropped 2.9% Thursday even though the insurer reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Its revenue fell short of forecasts.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise fell 10.1% after detailing long-term financial targets that some analysts found underwhelming.

They helped overshadow a 4% gain for Salesforce, which unveiled a plan to deliver more than 10% in compounded annual revenue growth in coming years.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services trucked 22.1% higher after the freight company breezed past Wall Street’s profit targets in the third quarter.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 41.99 points to 6,629.07. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 301.07 to 45,952.24, and the Nasdaq composite sank 107.54 to 22,562.54.

In the oil market, crude prices swung lower after Trump agreed to meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Hungary in hopes of resolving the war in Ukraine. The war has had the United States trying to cut off purchases of Russian oil.

A barrel of U.S. crude gave up an early gain to drop 1.4% to $57.46. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 1.4% to $61.06 per barrel.

In stock markets abroad, indexes climbed across much of Asia and Europe.

South Korea’s Kospi soared 2.5% on hopes that a trade deal may be coming between Seoul and Washington. Samsung Electronics and automakers [hotlink]Hyundai Motor[/hotlink] and Kia Corp. were among the big gainers.

In the bond market, Treasury yields dropped as investors herded toward investments considered safer. The yield on the 10-year Treasury sank to 3.97% from 4.05% late Wednesday.

Gold also rose in the hunt for safer investments. It climbed 2.5% to $4,304.60 per ounce, bringing its stunning gain for the year so far to roughly 63%.

A report in the morning said manufacturing activity in the mid-Atlantic region is unexpectedly shrinking. It’s one of the few windows into the economy that the Federal Reserve has been getting recently as it tries to figure out whether high inflation or the weak job market should be the bigger concern for the economy.

The U.S. government’s shutdown is delaying important updates on the economy, such as a weekly update on unemployment claims that typically helps guide Wall Street’s trading each Thursday. A day earlier, an important report on inflation was also delayed.

___

AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump sought to calm nerves in a post on Truth Social, following his announcement on Friday that he will impose an additional 100% tariff on China and limit U.S. exports of software. 

“Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine!” he wrote. “Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment. He doesn’t want Depression for his country, and neither do I. The U.S.A. wants to help China, not hurt it!!!”

Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance told Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures that the U.S. is willing to be reasonable if China is too, though he insisted Trump has the upper hand with “far more cards” than Beijing holds.

The shift in tone contrasts with Trump’s fiery rhetoric on Friday as he lashed out at China for its new export controls on rare earths, which are critical inputs across a range of industries.

“Market participants appear to be leaning into the TACO trade once more, fueled not only by what we’ve seen in the recent past, but also by conciliatory remarks over the weekend from both President Trump and Vice President Vance, suggesting that Friday’s announcement of additional 100% tariffs on Chinese imports are likely to be little more than a negotiating tactic,” Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone, said in a note on Sunday.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 382 points, or 0.84%. S&P 500 futures were up 1.27%, and Nasdaq futures jumped 1.79%.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury tumbled 8.9 basis points to 4.059%. The U.S. dollar was up 0.04% against the euro and up 0.48% against the yen. Gold climbed 1.43% to a new high of $4,057.50 per ounce. U.S. oil futures rose 1.29% to $59.66 a barrel, and Brent crude gained 1.32% to $63.56.

Trump had previously imposed 145% tariffs on China, then put them on hold to allow negotiations to play out. A similar pattern played out with other trade partners like the European Union, causing Wall Street to dismiss maximalist threats with the TACO (Trump always chickens out) trade.

Brown said Trump’s new China tariff, which would go into effect Nov. 1 and bring the overall level to 130%, appears to be another example of his “escalate to de-escalate” strategy.

“Assuming that this is another ‘TACO’ situation, and some clarity on that front is obtained before too long, then this is likely to prove another dip in equities that should be viewed as a buying opportunity, with the path of least resistance continuing to lead higher, if in somewhat choppy fashion,” he added.

At the same time, the Federal Reserve’s shift back to rate cuts amid still-solid economic growth should continue to boost to the dollar, which will likely shrug off tariff threats, Brown predicted.

Similarly, market veteran Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, also sees the U.S. and China pulling back from the precipice.

“If neither side were to blink, the US and Chinese economies would lead the global economy into a deep recession, if not a depression,” he wrote in a note on Sunday. “But we expect that both sides will blink very soon given the extremely adverse consequences of a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.”

For its part, Beijing remained defiant, with the commerce ministry saying Sunday that China doesn’t want a tariff war but is also not afraid of one. It also said the export controls are not a ban on rare earth shipments but are a sovereign right.

But China’s new rare earth export policy ups the ante well beyond another tit-for-tat exchange in the trade war against the U.S.

Dean Ball, who served as a senior advisor in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy earlier this year, wrote on X on Saturday that the policy gives Beijing the power to “forbid any country on Earth from participating in the modern economy.”

Dali Yang, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, sounded a similar alarm in a post on Sunday, saying the move marks a decisive moment that reveals what a China-led order might look like.

Looking beyond rare earths, it’s one that leverages control over strategic materials and technologies to prop up global influence.

“China is effectively saying: ‘We control the arteries of high-tech civilization.’ The rest of the world now sees that message clearly—and is scrambling to build new circulatory systems,” Yang wrote.

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Indian stock markets are trapped in a deadly waiting game as Trump’s crushing 50% tariff threat may slam the brakes on fresh investment flows, with many investors unwilling to commit fresh capital until a US-India trade deal materializes or a carnage hits Dalal Street, making it attractive enough to buy the dip.

While Thursday’s Sensex’s muted 300-point drop suggests markets had partially priced in steeper tariffs, analysts warn the real carnage in export-facing stocks is just beginning, and the paralysis could persist for months.

Trump’s punitive tariffs on Russian crude imports have pushed total US duties to levels Nomura calls “similar to a trade embargo.” The 50% rate, 20 points higher than China and 21 above Pakistan, threatens a bunch of export sectors worth billions of dollars.

“This is a tough period to navigate for investors,” warns Seshadri Sen from Emkay Global. “The terms of the final trade deal could still be considerably different, though a worst-case, highly damaging scenario has presented itself.”

The carnage is already being mapped out sector by sector. Sen identifies the most vulnerable: “The most-impacted sectors are textiles (Gokaldas/Kitex), Chemicals (Camlin, Aarti and Atul), and Auto Ancs (BHFC/Suprajit/Sona BLW), with direct export exposure to the US.”

Nomura’s analysis reveals the scale of destruction awaiting: “If effective, the steep 50% tariff would be similar to a trade embargo, and will lead to a sudden stop in affected export products. The lower value addition and thinner margins across a number of industries (textiles, gem & jewellery) could jeopardise operations, especially of smaller firms that will struggle to compete.”The US accounts for 18% of India’s total exports and 2.2% of GDP, with key sectors seeing 30-40% of their global exports heading to America. For textiles, gems & jewelry, and leather companies operating on thin margins, the tariff wall could prove insurmountable.

Domestic brokerage firm SBI Securities has warned of collateral damage to Indian companies operating US brands. “Stay away from US brands focussed domestic franchisees, as clamour to boycott US products and follow swadeshi model may grow,” the brokerage cautions, naming Jubilant Foodworks (Dominos, Dunkin Donut), Westlife (McDonald’s), Devyani International (Burger King), Varun Beverages (Pepsi), and Sapphire Foods (KFC, Pizza Hut) as vulnerable to “temporary enhanced selling pressure.”

Mahesh Patil of Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC draws parallels with Brazil’s experience: “We are now at par with Brazil, which provides a blueprint, it saw a 6-7% fall from the peak before recovering in local terms.”

The rupee’s decline, while painful, offers a counterintuitive benefit. “The immediate casualty is the INR, which will take the brunt—this will provide some respite for exporters. Counterintuitively, a fall in the INR (once it stabilises) is positive for local earnings, and hence equities benefit with a lag,” Patil explains.

What should investors do?

With export sectors in the crosshairs, the investment playbook is shifting toward domestic consumption. SBI Securities recommends focusing on “domestic-focused businesses like Cement, Hotels, Telecom, New Age Businesses, EMS players, Auto/Auto Ancillaries, Hospitals, Defence/Railways, and Alcoholic Beverages.”

Ajay Sen of Emkay Global maintains conviction in India’s structural resilience: “We see the broader economy staying resilient and remain convinced of a 2HFY26 consumption-led recovery. We would look through any near-term volatility caused by this and buy a substantial dip (of more than 5%).”

The dip-buying opportunity

Several analysts are positioning the crisis as a potential goldmine for patient investors. Sen’s four-point survival strategy includes: “Buy the dip if the market correction exceeds 5% from here. Valuations would then be comfortably below the long-term average, and the direct impact on the listed universe’s earnings is negligible.”

Dr. V.K. Vijayakumar of Geojit Financial Services strikes a balanced tone: “The market is unlikely to panic, but weakness will continue in the near term. Since uncertainty is high, investors should adopt a cautious approach.”

Your investment strategy depends significantly on your investment horizon and risk appetite. Santosh Meena of Swastika Investmart advises long-term investors to stay the course: “This development is part of ongoing global trade tensions and shouldn’t distract from India’s long-term growth potential. But short-term traders should exercise caution.”

For long-term investors, the consensus remains surprisingly optimistic. India’s domestic consumption story stays intact, with IT, pharmaceuticals, and electronics notably exempt from current tariff announcements.

As Patil concludes: “Any knee-jerk correction in the market would be a good opportunity to increase allocation to equities, as the macroeconomic outlook and long-term fundamentals of India are fairly strong.”

The 21-day countdown to tariff implementation has begun. Markets may be paralyzed now, but for those willing to look beyond the immediate chaos, the foundations for the next rally may already be forming.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sought Tuesday to reassure farmers and one Republican senator about his upcoming report on how pesticides are driving up rates of childhood chronic diseases, acknowledging that chemicals like glyphosate that he has long criticized are widely used for growing crops in the U.S.

“I have said repeatedly throughout this process, that we cannot take any step that will put a single farmer in this country out of business,” Kennedy said at a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “There’s a million farmers who rely on glyphosate. 100% of corn in this country relies on glyphosate. We are not going to do anything to jeopardize that business model.” 

The White House in February tasked Kennedy with leading a “Make America Healthy Again Commission,” which is producing a report assessing the threat of a range of issues that might be causing disease in children. 

Targets include the “potential over-utilization of medication, certain food ingredients, certain chemicals, and certain other exposures” in children. Kennedy said their report was due to be released Thursday. 

“Your information about the report is just simply wrong,” Kennedy told Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi in response to a question about the report. “The drafts that I’ve seen, there is not a single word in them that should worry the American farmer.” 

Hyde-Smith had told Kennedy that she was “deeply concerned” that the report will “unfairly target American agriculture, modern farming practices and the crop protection tools” that U.S. farmers use.

“We all know what confirmation bias is. It’s no secret that you were involved with pesticide litigation, prior to becoming secretary,” Hyde-Smith told Kennedy.

What has RFK Jr. said about pesticides like glyphosate?

Kennedy has criticized the use of several pesticides in the U.S. food supply, including as an environmental attorney during court battles with chemical manufacturer Monsanto over accusations that its widely-used weedkiller Roundup — made from the chemical glyphosate — was causing cancer.

“If my life were a Superman comic, Monsanto would be my Lex Luther. I’ve seen this company as the enemy of every admirable American value,” Kennedy wrote in a 2020 Facebook post.

During his longshot independent presidential campaign, Kennedy pledged to get toxins out of the food supply, warning that “toxic chemicals like glyphosate” were widely contaminating what Americans were eating. 

He continued that criticism in the months ahead of the 2024 election as he stumped in support of President Trump, recalling how his son resolved his “really agonizing” eczema by switching to eating pasta made in Europe.

“As soon as he comes back here and he eats the pasta in this country, he gets eczema,” he told Donald Trump Jr. on a podcast in September of last year. “And you know, they don’t have the glyphosate like we do, that is sprayed on the wheat at harvest time. So it’s going right into the food.” 

What will be in RFK Jr.’s “MAHA Commission” report?

One of Kennedy’s top HHS advisers, Calley Means — whose sister Dr. Casey Means was nominated by President Trump earlier this month for the surgeon general post — said that the report is aimed at outlining “obvious” ways that children are “being poisoned through areas that there’s not even that much scientific disagreement on.”

“Obviously, it’s because of environmental toxins,” Means said, speaking at a May 15 event hosted by the Kennedy-aligned MAHA Institute. “We produce and ingest 25% of the world’s pesticides. The leading herbicides and pesticides that we use in the United States, many of them are phased out or banned in every other country in the world.”

Means said that the report was not intended to result in “a European nanny state system” to crack down on pesticides, pledging instead to come up with “pro-innovation policies to solve this issue” under Kennedy. He blasted lobbyists for opposing the report’s release.

Beyond “environmental toxins” like pesticides, Means listed a number of other issues he alleges are making American children sick, including ultra-processed foods, added sugars, seed oils, sedentary behavior, lack of sleep, overprescriptions and vaccines.

“They’re saying it’s going to scare the American people to get facts out. They’re putting so much pressure on President Trump, so much pressure on Secretary Kennedy to not release facts,” Means said last week. 

What power does RFK Jr. have over pesticides?

The Department of Health and Human Services does not directly set the limits on how glyphosate and other pesticides are used. That is left up to the Environmental Protection Agency. However, HHS does oversee the major research that underpins how the EPA regulates chemicals.

Studies into pesticides like glyphosate to inform the EPA’s limits often come from the federal health agencies within HHS.

For example, the National Institutes of Health’s National Toxicology Program published results in 2023 suggesting that glyphosate is “unlikely” to be genotoxic, which had been one of the main ways international experts previously suspected it might cause cancer.

Results from a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study published in 2022 found that diet was likely a factor in how much glyphosate people were being exposed to, based on urine samples taken in adults and children. 

Through the Food and Drug Administration, Kennedy also has authority over how glyphosate levels in food are tracked and the EPA’s limits are enforced. 

The last round of published sampling by the FDA in 2022 found that 54 samples of human food had detectable amounts of glyphosate out of 731 analyzed. Corn and beans were among the most frequent detections.