We Knew Agent Orange Was Toxic. We Used It Anyway. Now, We’re Walking Away.
Trump’s VA Cuts and Cleanup Shutdown Leave Veterans and Victims Without Help.
The U.S. government poisoned its own soldiers. It poisoned innocent civilians. It knew the risks, and it sprayed anyway. Then, for decades, it denied responsibility. And now, after barely beginning to clean up the damage, Trump has shut it down—again.
The Vietnamese people are still being poisoned. American veterans and their children are still suffering. But rather than continue the slow, overdue cleanup effort, the U.S. has cut funding for remediation at sites where dioxin—the deadly toxin in Agent Orange—is still contaminating water and soil.
And to make things worse? Trump’s VA staffing cuts will choke the very system responsible for helping the veterans we poisoned. The same government that exposed millions of people to these chemicals is now walking away from its duty to care for them.
This isn’t just a bureaucratic decision. It’s a dereliction of duty. It’s a humanitarian failure. And it’s an embarrassment to the United States on the world stage.
See our reporting on Trump’s betrayal of the military here:
We Knew It Was Poison, But We Used It Anyway
In the early 1960s, before the first American combat troops even set foot in Vietnam, scientists already knew that Agent Orange and other herbicides contained dangerous levels of dioxin.
1950s: Chemical companies like Dow and Monsanto knew that dioxin was toxic. Studies on animals showed severe health effects, but the companies kept producing it for military use.
1965: The U.S. government received internal reports that Agent Orange could cause serious health issues, including cancer and birth defects.
1969: A Pentagon-funded study found a clear link between dioxin and birth defects in lab animals. The U.S. military kept spraying for another two years.
By the time the spraying stopped in 1971, millions of American troops had been exposed. Vietnamese civilians had been drenched in it. From 1962 to 1971, the U.S. Air Force sprayed nearly 19 million gallons of herbicides in Vietnam, of which at least 11 million gallons was Agent Orange.
But when Vietnam veterans started getting sick in the 1970s and 80s, the U.S. government denied their claims. For decades, the VA refused to acknowledge what it had done.
We knew. We sprayed anyway. Then, we abandoned the people we poisoned. And now, after only 13 years of cleanup, we’re abandoning them again.
We Took Decades to Clean It Up—Now We’re Abandoning It
It took the U.S. 41 years to even start cleaning up the damage from Agent Orange. Now, after barely a decade of effort, Trump has shut it down.
It wasn’t until 2012 that the U.S. began cleaning up toxic hotspots in Vietnam. That’s four decades after we stopped spraying.
Dioxin contamination in places like Bien Hoa Air Base is still dangerously high. This isn’t just about history—it’s still poisoning people right now.
Generations of Vietnamese children are still being born with severe birth defects, including cleft lips, missing limbs, and spinal deformities. The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange contamination.
The problem isn’t going away on its own. Dioxin is one of the most persistent toxic chemicals on Earth. It binds to soil, leaches into water supplies, and builds up in the food chain. That means people living near contaminated sites are still being exposed decades later.
The cleanup efforts were slow, underfunded, and a fraction of what was actually needed, but at least they were happening.
Now? The funding is gone. The work has stopped. And people are still suffering.
This was already an overdue and insufficient effort. Shutting it down now is nothing short of abandonment.
VA Cuts Will Make It Even Harder for Victims to Get Help
The U.S. poisoned its own troops. Then, it spent decades denying them care. Now, with Trump’s planned VA staffing cuts, the government is making it even harder for surviving veterans to get the medical attention they need.
The PACT Act (Honoring Our PACT Act of 2022), signed into law by President Joe Biden, provided care and compensation for veterans exposed to toxic substances, including burn pits, Agent Orange, and other environmental hazards. The law added more than 20 new presumptive conditions linked to these exposures, ensuring that veterans no longer have to prove direct causation for their illnesses. To handle the influx of claims, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hired over 61,000 new staff in 2023 alone—its most significant workforce expansion ever—and increased medical facilities and claims processing capabilities.
The VA is already overwhelmed with toxic exposure cases. As of December 2024, there were 241,601 backlogged disability claims, with 922,727 total pending claims still being processed by the enlarged workforce.
Now, Trump’s cuts will slash the staff handling those claims. Fewer workers mean longer wait times, more denials, and more veterans dying before they get the care they deserve.
Families of exposed veterans will also be left behind. The children of veterans with Agent Orange-related conditions have never been fully recognized or compensated. With fewer resources, those cases will be even harder to push forward.
And this isn’t just about Vietnam.
The pattern of exposure, denial, and abandonment has never stopped. The same government that ignored Agent Orange victims ignored 9/11 first responders when they developed cancer. It ignored Gulf War veterans with mysterious illnesses. It ignored Iraq and Afghanistan veterans poisoned by burn pits.
First, they poisoned them. Then, they abandoned them. Now, they’re making sure they never get justice.
The U.S. Is Failing Its Moral and Diplomatic Responsibilities
Agent Orange is more than a war crime we never answered for. It’s an ongoing humanitarian disaster that the U.S. is choosing to ignore.
This isn’t just about veterans. It’s about the children still being born with birth defects in Vietnam. It’s about the families still living in contaminated villages, the farmers whose land is still poisoned, and the generations still paying the price for a war that ended 50 years ago.
By abandoning the cleanup, the U.S. is sending a message to the world: We will wage war with no regard for the consequences. We will use chemicals we know are dangerous. We will walk away when the damage becomes inconvenient.
And by cutting VA staffing, we’re telling our own troops: Your service ends when you're no longer useful to us.
This is about justice. This is about accountability. And this is about the simple, undeniable fact that if the U.S. has the resources to drop these chemicals in the first place, it damn well has the resources to clean them up.
What Needs to Happen Now
Congress must reinstate funding for the Agent Orange cleanup. The people still suffering from our mistakes deserve better.
VA staffing cuts must be stopped. Veterans exposed to military toxins need more resources, not fewer.
Veterans and their families must be fully recognized. No more battles over which illnesses “count.” If toxic exposure is suspected, care should be guaranteed.
The U.S. government has failed its veterans. It has failed its allies. And right now, it is failing its own moral test.
This isn’t just history. It’s happening right now. And it’s time to demand better.
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Bibliography:
"Trump Halted an Agent Orange Cleanup. That Puts Hundreds of Thousands at Risk for Poisoning." ProPublica. Published: March 17, 2025. https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-halted-agent-orange-cleanup-dioxin-vietnam-poison-risk
"Trump Gutting USAID Leads to Catastrophe for Agent Orange Cleanup." The New Republic. Published: March 17, 2025. https://newrepublic.com/post/192837/trump-usaid-agent-orange-cleanup
"Trump administration plans to cut 80,000 employees from VA." Associated Press News. Published: March 9, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/veterans-affairs-cuts-doge-musk-trump-f587a6bc3db6a460e9c357592e165712
"Veterans are speaking out on the Trump administration's plans to cut the VA's budget." Associated Press News. Published: March 5, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/370be785e1117ab0d82a58c95c639420
“Vietnam War and Agent Orange Exposure.” National Center for Biotechnology Information. Published: 2014. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK236347/
“Agent Orange.” Wikipedia. Last Updated: 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange
“VA Backlog Statistics (December 2024).” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Published: December 2024. https://www.benefits.va.gov/reports/detailed_claims_data.asp“VA Claims Backlog by State.” VA Claims Insider. Published: 2024.
https://vaclaimsinsider.com/va-claims-backlog-by-state/“Children of Women Vietnam Veterans Health Care Benefits.” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Last Updated: 2023. https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/birth-defects/children-women-vietnam-vets.asp
“Nehmer vs. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.” National Veterans Legal Services Program. Last Updated: 2024. https://www.nvlsp.org/what-we-do/class-actions/nehmer-agent-orange-lawsuit
“Honoring our PACT Act of 2022” Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honoring_our_PACT_Act_of_2022
“VA continues aggressive hiring push to deliver PACT Act care and benefits” -VA News https://news.va.gov/press-room/va-continues-aggressive-hiring-push-to-deliver-pact-act-care-and-benefits/
“VA attributes record-breaking year to massive increases in hiring” Government Executive https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2023/11/va-attributes-record-breaking-year-massive-increases-hiring/391791/
Hopefully as with many of Trumps so called Executive orders, it will be deemed unconstitutional or not doable by the courts. My brothers were both exposed, one now dead suffered from a brain deterioration disease the VA never gave a name to and only paid him disability after fighting them for the last ten years of his life. The other had two-that’s two serious cancers at the same time. While treating him for prostate cancer they discovered pancreatic cancer, in early stages so he survived it. That brother and I no longer communicate because of Trump so I know nothing of any benefits but I know he wasn’t treated at the VA, he didn’t trust it.
This stories is spot on, Marie.
My uncle passed away in 1997 from lung cancer. When he was diagnosed, the doctors had told him that it was too late for them to do anything.
He had never married or had any children. The horrors of war had stained him for the rest of his life and he had a hard time coping with what he saw in Vietnam.
During his last days, he went and stayed with my grandparents and spent a lot of time out on the front porch deep in his thoughts. When he passed, he was just a shell of what he had once been.
About a year later, my grandmother recieved a letter from the VA stating that his cancer had most likely been caused by Agent Orange. But they couldn't say it for sure.
Just yesterday, I started treatments for my third bout With cancer. I was diagnosed with prostate cancer back in 2016 and underwent radiation treatments. In the summer of 2023, I was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) at the base of my tongue and lymph nodes on the left side of my neck and underwent radiation and chemotherapy for that. Now, the SCC is back on the right side of my throat and in my left lung and started immunotherapy just yesterday. I was in the US Navy from 1990 to 1996.
Right now, I can't say if any of my cancer is due to exposure to any toxins while I was in the Navy, but it makes me wonder for sure. I'd like to get in touch with some of the guys i served with to see if they are having any similar problems.
One thing is for sure, though. Trump does not care about veterans or active duty personnel. I believe General Mattis when he says that Trump thinks we are "suckered and losers". And I can't believe that any veteran or military member could ever support him at all.