{"id":195601,"date":"2026-09-04T04:34:36","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T04:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/195601\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T04:34:36","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T04:34:36","slug":"toilet-paper-becomes-an-issue-for-trump-again-as-canadas-tariffs-could-spell-another-shortage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/195601\/","title":{"rendered":"Toilet paper becomes an issue for Trump again as Canada’s tariffs could spell another shortage"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seems like so long ago, but in the not-so-distant past, all of us were roaming the supermarket aisles for the last roll of TP<\/a>, cursing at those who began stockpiling the rolls, and blaming the relative who brought a bidet back from Japan for not bringing one back for you as well. While the days of reaching for the last TP under a \u201climit one roll per customer\u201d sign shoddily taped to the rack may be over, the thought of a shortage possibly returning to haunt the same president six years later isn\u2019t far-fetched.<\/p>\n

After trade talks between the U.S. and Canada broke down in late August, Washington imposed a 50% tariff on roughly $20 billion of Canadian goods under a section of the Tariff Act of 1930\u2014a Depression-era law that lets the president retaliate against countries seen as discriminating against U.S. commerce. In response, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed to match the US \u201cdollar for dollar,\u201d and unveiled retaliatory tariffs on close to 900 American products, set to take effect next week, on Sept. 8. Chief among them? Toilet paper and paper products.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada will match those tariffs dollar for dollar,\u201d Carney said<\/a> two weeks ago. \u201cBecause we were attacked. Like, you\u2019re at war when you get attacked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paper goods are among the hardest hit. Canada\u2019s retaliation puts a 25% duty on U.S. toilet paper and facial tissue, and a 50% duty on paper towels, napkins, and raw wood pulp. Canada is also charging 50% on American dairy products (except cheese, which gets 25%) and 25% on American fish and seafood, including frozen lobster. It\u2019s in response to U.S. tariffs, including a 25% tariff on Canadian cars and auto parts\u2014and Trump is now threatening to double that to 50% if no deal is reached by Jan. 1, 2027.<\/p>\n

A Covid-era toilet paper shortage<\/p>\n

On March 12, 2020, U.S. toilet paper sales surged 734% compared with the same day the year before, making it the top-selling<\/a> grocery item that day. By the time the panic subsided, roughly 70% of the world\u2019s grocery stores had run out of toilet paper at some point<\/a>. Shelves that normally held Charmin and Cottonelle sat bare for weeks as retailers imposed purchase limits, and bamboo-paper startups saw Amazon<\/a> sales jump more than 5,000%<\/a> month over month as shoppers hunted for anything they could find. Researchers who studied the episode afterward found no actual break in production. Mills kept running. Hoarding, not a supply failure, created nearly all of it.<\/p>\n

Eight months later, due to a confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic and his administration\u2019s handling of the virus, President Donald Trump lost the presidency to Joe Biden. Toilet paper didn\u2019t decide that election, but it became a small symbol of an economy that felt like it was slipping out of a president\u2019s control, just as voters decided whether to give him another term.<\/p>\n

Americans make up just 4% of the world\u2019s population but use<\/a> more than 20% of the world\u2019s tissue supply, burning through an average of 141 rolls a year. Six years after the pandemic, Trump is again facing affordability and kitchen table prices, just as the midterms campaign season kicks into high gear.<\/p>\n

The toilet paper supplier and tariffs<\/p>\n

Trade talks between the US and Canada broke down in late August 2026. In response, Washington imposed a 50% tariff on roughly $20 billion (C$27.6 billion) of Canadian goods<\/a> under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930\u2014a Depression-era law that lets the president retaliate against countries seen as discriminating against US commerce. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed to match the US \u201cdollar for dollar,\u201d<\/a> and Ottawa unveiled retaliatory tariffs on close to 900 American products, set to take effect September 8.<\/p>\n

The US, for its part, has also placed a 25% tariff on Canadian cars and auto parts, with Trump threatening to double that to 50% if no deal is reached by January 1, 2027. To soften the blow at home, Ottawa announced a C$7.5 billion relief package<\/a> for small and medium Canadian businesses hurt by the standoff.<\/p>\n

Americans make up just 4% of the world\u2019s population but use more than 20% of the world\u2019s tissue supply<\/a>, burning through an average of 141 rolls a year\u2014the highest rate globally, just ahead of Germany\u2019s 134.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Canada supplied<\/a> $328 million worth of toilet paper to the country, more than any other country, just as retailers like Costco source much of their private-label paper stock from Canadian mills. The supply chain complicates this as American factories rely on northern bleached softwood kraft pulp, or NBSK, harvested from Canadian forests, which makes up roughly 30% of a standard American toilet paper roll and close to half of U.S. paper towel production. U.S. mills buy about 2 million tons of Canadian NBSK a year.<\/p>\n

Procter & Gamble, which makes Charmin, told investors on its April 2026 earnings call that tariffs broadly were creating a roughly<\/a> $0.25-per-share earnings headwind, prior to the Canadian tariffs. Americans are paying 96% of the cost of Trump\u2019s tariffs<\/a>, and Federal Reserve research showed tariffs are now<\/a> seeing \u201cfull pass-through\u201d to consumer prices.<\/p>\n

The American Forest & Paper Association, which did not respond to Fortune\u2019s requests for comment, argues that any shortages would be localized rather than become national. It\u2019s still urging consumers not to stock up ahead of the September 8 deadline.<\/p>\n

All of this is posing a problem for Trump: Ahead of the midterms, his economic standing has slipped further than the White House would like. Just 39% of Americans approve of his job<\/a> performance, and only 30% approve of his handling of inflation, with a 31% plurality naming inflation and prices their top concern \u2014 17 points ahead of the next issue, jobs and the economy. Even Marc Short, who served in Trump\u2019s first administration, said it\u2019s hard to argue his tariffs aren\u2019t contributing to the affordability problem. Goldman Sachs<\/a> research found that the cost of living is voters\u2019 top issue at a higher share<\/a> than heading into the 2024 election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It seems like so long ago, but in the not-so-distant past, all of us were roaming the supermarket…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,21485,3758,61272,400],"class_list":["post-195601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-canada","tag-coronavirus","tag-grocery","tag-shortages","tag-tariffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}