With the US midterm votes now in, we review how biomanufacturing policy has evolved under President Donald Trump’s second presidency and where it could go next.
Trump ends Biden-era policy
US bioeconomy policy underwent a dramatic shift in 2025, when President Trump rescinded President Biden’s Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation executive order.
Biden’s 2022 law had aimed to expand the American bioeconomy in service of economic growth and industrial decarbonisation. It came as no surprise to many that Trump dismantled the scheme given how critical the Make America Great movement has been of government support for clean-tech.
However, certain parts of the US bioeconomy have continued to enjoy federal government support under Trump. Since his second government took office last year, funding has narrowed to focus on technologies with immediate national security and military applications.
We look at Trump 2.0’s distinctly military vision of biomanufacturing.
The shift to defence
National security and geopolitics were not absent in Biden’s bioeconomy policy. The administration’s executive order on the bioeconomy referenced US global competitiveness, protecting valuable IP, and safeguarding bio-data.
Under Trump, however, federal funding has been informed by a much narrower vision of national security, one tied more closely to military operations and the control of strategic resources.
With decarbonisation goals jettisoned, Trump-era federal support has coalesced around biotech with combat applications, as well as those that support US resource independence across energy and critical minerals.
Several action plans made this shift clear. In July of 2025, the Department of Agriculture released a National Farm Security Action Plan. The plan proposed to integrate agriculture into US national security policy. Initiatives included preventing foreign ownership of American farmland and strengthening biosecurity against animal and plant diseases.
US agriculture feeds the country’s bioeconomy, providing feedstock in the form of agrowaste and crops. Once the federal government earmarked the sector as a geopolitical asset, it bound the biobased supply chain much closely to the realm of foreign policy.
In November 2025 came another sign that the US bioeconomy had shifted from a tool of growth and decarbonisation to an instrument of defence and military planning. The Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering announced biomanufacturing would be one of six critical tech priorities for weapons development.
Biomade: the centre of US bioeconomy policy
The shift towards a defence-led bioeconomy is a continuation from the first Trump government. A clear indication of this is BioMADE. Founded in 2021, it is the most important federal body for US bioeconomy growth today.
BioMADE is a Department of Defense-sponsored institute and is a key decision-maker for where federal biotech funding goes. It has managed hundreds of millions of dollars since its founding, coming from the Department of War as well as from private sector companies, nonprofits, and venture capital groups.
BioMADE was already integrated into the architecture of federal bioeconomy funding even before Trump returned to power. In 2023, under Biden, BioMADE got an increase in its budget ceiling from $87 million to over $500 million from the then-Department of Defense (now the Department of War).
BioMADE invests
Biomade has now supported over 92 projects since it was set up. A large slice of this was announced in April 2026, when BioMADE unveiled a $21 million investment into 14 biomanufacturing initiatives.
The projects ranged across biomining, plastics for 3D printing, proteins for wound healing and chemical defence, biosensors for disease detection. The list reveals how the Trump administration understands the value of biotech, as tools for military dominance and a means to ramp up the US’ extractive industries.
With its ties to the defence establishment, it’s no surprise that BioMADE looks for projects with clear national security applications. Wound healing proteins and light-on-its-feet biobased disease detection sensors have obvious military applications.
The list also features a startup with a microbial method for extracting lithium from oil and gas waste-water. A biobased method of recovering minerals has strategic benefits.
Expanding US production in critical minerals like lithium have been a major preoccupation for the Trump government. It is a means of securing resource sovereignty and policy independence from dominant mining power China.
Recovering the metal from fossil industry waste-water goes one better. A means of valorising its waste products could boost revenue for MAGA-favoured oil and gas companies.
Prioritising pilot plants
One of BioMADE’s most important initiatives right now is in building biomanufacturing pilot plants across the country.
Pilot plants are pivotal nodes in any biobased ecosystem. These are where promising lab ideas can be tested on a bigger scale before entering commercial testing. Without government investment in this early-stage infrastructure, private sector investment in biomanufacturing will remain sluggish.
BioMADE’s sites will give early-stage startups access to shared equipment where they can demonstrate and refine new processes. In April it began to roll out the network, selecting a 122,000-square-foot facility in Maple Grove, Minnesota to become the first of its pilot plants.
The ability for early-stage producers to access capital-intensive testing equipment will be a key determinant of the US bioeconomy’s global competitiveness. Currently, pilots are where the US bioeconomy is weakest. Innovations far outpace the industrial capacity needed to bring them to market.
DARPA leads bio-innovation
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the other major player in the US bioeconomy – a clear continuity in biobased policy. The agency has invested in advanced materials for decades.
The agency sees domestic supply chains as fundamental to strengthening national security. Renewable materials are no exception. `With the US’ large biomass pool, biomaterials offer a huge untapped resource for building independence from foreign imports vulnerable to disruption.
One of DARPA’s ongoing projects is the Fleetwood program to develop novel catalysts and advanced manufacturing processes to convert biomass waste into value-added chemicals and materials.
The agency’s biomanufacturing dreams also extend upward into space, where it envisages large-scale structures that can be grown off-planet.
Biofuels benefit
The Trump administration came to power with the promise of energy independence through fossil fuels. The oil and gas industries have profited as the government lifts restrictions on drilling emissions and power plant pollution.
Alongside fossil fuel deregulation, however, the government has also proved keen on promoting US energy independence through biofuels.
Made from the nation’s very own crops, biofuel production easily fits the administration’s America First rhetoric. Montana Renewables biofuel facility in Great Falls, Montana, for example, is among the few Biden-era renewable energy projects to continue drawing on Department of Energy loans well into the Trump administration.
Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill weakened standards for producers to access the 45Z biofuel tax credit initially created by Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to increase production. One estimate says this change has meant an extra $25 billion in tax subsidies being diverted towards biofuel producers.
Industry lags innovation
Other areas of the bioeconomy have been harder hit by the shifting policy environment.
BioMADE has overlooked emerging biomaterials such as bio-based textiles, mushroom-based materials for nonplastic packaging and construction, and protein-based ingredients for food applications.
These low-carbon innovations have fewer obvious military applications. However, these are the segments of the bioeconomy most in need of research and industrial-scale testing. Production costs remain high, posing a significant barrier for investors.
Even under MAGA’s own criteria, lack of investment into these areas is an oversight. US companies in these spaces have to rely primarily on overseas manufacturing capacity for initial market entry. This undercuts MAGA’s emphasis on resource independence and domestic manufacturing.
Another problem is the speed at which new manufacturing capacity must go up to keep pace with innovations. DARPA has steadily plugged away at the problem of efficient biomanufacturing, demonstrating advanced manufacturing capabilities that private investors have largely avoided.
Yet these top-of-the-range facilities remain inaccessible for ordinary commercial producers. Biomanufacturing facilities often require 2-5 years to build and commission for use and up to $2 billion of capital investment.
To overcome this, the US will likely have to develop new kinds of manufacturing facilities altogether. According to an MIT policy brief, smaller, faster, and more cost-efficient biomanufacturing facilities are the solution. These would be 10-100 times lower in cost than they are today (roughly $10 million to $100 million).
To roll out facilities of this kind, BioMADE would need far more federal funding and a more sweeping mandate.
The political pendulum
The previous Democratic administration framed biomanufacturing as a pathway to lower-carbon economic growth. It emphasised creating broad-based commercial demand for biobased products and stressed the value of biomaterials for supply chain resilience.
Under the Trump administration, economic competitiveness, growth, and jobs are still regarded as desirable goals. However, the priority has shifted to military-ready biotech and capacity that supports defence needs.
With presidential elections another two years away, anything like a return to Biden-era policy would still be a long way off. However, the result of the midterms could still spark a contest over biomanufacturing in the US.
A Democrat resurgence in the Congress and Senate may bolster certain segments of the Republican party that support federal biomanufacturing initiatives. A coalition like this would advance initiatives like the Bipartisan Bill in Biomanufacturing, introduced in April 2026, which aims to incentivise biochemicals and biomaterials production with tax cuts.
Yet reviving a framework as ambitious as Biden’s Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation executive order remains a long way off. It would not just require a Democratic presidential win in 2028 – it would also need broader reflection on why Biden’s clean-tech push failed and how to ensure any renewed attempt would succeed.
