It Will Take a Fortune in Toilet Paper to Wipe Away Trump’s Tariff Manipulation
Skyrocketing toilet paper prices and pissed-off beef ranchers have GOP members of Congress turning on Trump's damaging tariffs.
Photo via Unsplash, Erik Mclean Splinter Tariffs
A headline you’ve probably already encountered in the last 24 hours, or will in the next 24: “Wiped out: U.S. faces surging toilet paper prices amid trade war with Canada.” That piece, from The Guardian, uses the ever-necessary and panic-purchased staple of toilet paper in order to make a point about the concrete effects that Americans are sure to feel as a result of Donald Trump’s steep, punitive tariffs on our ally of nearly a century, Canada. Said tariffs have already compelled our neighbor to the north to issue its own bonkers tariffs against the American goods we most often ship to Canada, which can only result in pain for American businesses and employers. But let’s stick to toilet paper for just a moment, given some of the fascinating numbers involved here.
The U.S. does import at least some toilet paper from Canada, at around $328 million per year according to the World Bank. That’s only a drop in the toilet of what we actually consume, though, because it turns out American toilet paper consumption is absolutely ludicrous. Something genuinely shocking I didn’t know before today: The U.S. apparently accounts for 20% of the total toilet paper usage of the globe, despite the fact that our country represents only 4% of the total world population! No other country’s citizenry burns through as much TP as each American does on a yearly basis, estimated at 141 rolls of toilet paper per person, per year.
Logically, it makes sense that we would produce as much of that bathroom tissue as we can for ourselves, and domestic companies do. But in order to produce that toiler paper, the industry heavily relies on Canadian lumber imports as a starting point in paper manufacturing. Thus, a steep tariff on Canadian lumber or other elements of the paper industry naturally results in skyrocketing toilet paper prices by the time the supply chain is finished … which is why Procter & Gamble said last year that any Canadian tariffs would directly tie in to its raising of prices on toilet paper. The math is simple and inescapable: Trump’s tariffs make everyday goods more expensive for American consumers, and are being wielded as a cudgel attempting to extract trade concessions from countries like Canada, but the likes of Canada aren’t willing to stand for this bullshit any more. They’re likely betting on the inevitable Trump TACO.
Wiped out: US faces surging toilet paper prices amid trade war with Canada
GuardianPaper products among hardest-hit sectors after negotiations broke down, 25-50% tariffs estimated
Full-fledged trade war threatens to flush away decades of trading
A small thing people will notice
bit.ly/4wNO3ji
— Frank D. Russo (@fdrtoday.bsky.social) 10:57 AM · Aug 26, 2026
And that might be a reasonable call, because GOP members of Congress also seem quite sick of all this economic bullshit from Trump, particularly with the midterm elections immediately on the horizon. Although some are attempting the tricky gambit of criticizing Trump’s policy without criticizing Trump himself, insisting that he is being “misled” by advisors into making poor decisions–classic “good tsar, bad boyars” stuff–an increasing number of them are flat out saying that they think Trump is wrong on pretty much any topic having to do with trade or basic economics.
This obviously includes the types of precariously positioned GOP “centrists” like Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins who you would expect to see willing to criticize Trump. Given her state’s close proximity and trade relationship with Canada, the reignited tariff war between the countries could be especially strangling to the Maine economy, and the industries that export across the border. Speaking to News Center Maine in an interview yesterday, Collins said that “I still think imposing new tariffs on Canada is a mistake,” and the following: “I really want us to go back to the very friendly, economically beneficial relationship that we have with our Canadian neighbors. We produce a lot in Maine—our blueberries, our potatoes, our lobster, our lumber—that is processed across the border. If it comes back with a huge tariff on it, perhaps as much as 50 percent, that increases the cost of eating, building homes and merch[andising] our best-known products.”
But the words of Collins seem almost rosy and adoring of Donald Trump, compared to the condemnation coming in from both the business sector and GOP members of Congress on another hot-button issue that has caught the MAGA imagination: Trump’s proclamation last week that the U.S. would purchase a flood of discounted foreign beef, more than 300,000 tons of it, by dropping foreign beef tariffs in the next 90 days in a transparent ploy to try to bring prices down a little before the midterm elections. This effort to depress beef prices could have painful effects for American ranchers already struggling to make any profit on their steers, while giving them literally no incentive to “replenish” the American beef herd as Trump claims they will. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association condemned the administration’s “repeated whiplash on trade policy and beef imports,” saying that the White House’s plan was “not about putting their finger on the scale for one cattle industry group or another. It is 100 percent about the 74 days between now and the midterm elections.”
Trump: tariffs don’t raise prices
MAGA: yeah! tariffs don’t raise prices, dumb libs
Trump: I’m going to suspend tariffs on imported beef to lower prices
MAGA: suspending tariffs will lower prices, dumb libs
Even Trump is likely surprised by the sheer amount of public complaining that the beef move in particular has generated from GOP allies.
“Americans want U.S. beef on the table — not foreign imports,” said Sen. John Barrasso (WY), the GOP whip and thus #2 ranking Senate Republican. “Wyoming ranchers produce the highest-quality beef in the world. Our ranchers don’t ask for special treatment. They simply want a fair marketplace.” Likewise, Sen. Tim Sheehy (MT) condemned the move, saying that he had personally advised against it: “I advised President Trump against this course of action for a year because American ranchers have been struggling against the packer monopoly for decades, and this will further harm them. Most of whom are MAGA Republicans.”
Republican cattle-state senators break with Trump on beef imports
— Quartz (@quartzmedia.bsky.social) 4:45 PM · Aug 25, 2026
They’re not the only ones, as negative statements against Trump have come in from everyone from Sen. Pete Ricketts (NE) to Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS), to Sen. Steve Daines (MT). These are Republicans who have up to this point slavishly gone along with every possible Trump proposal and demand, suddenly telling their constituents that the President of the United States doesn’t give a shit about them. Although of course, some still find it easier to blame those pesky boyars, like Rep. Josh Brecheen (OK), who said online that he had “reached out to the one person I’m convinced that the president listens to and respects the most on this subject to highlight concerns and suggest a focus on that which could serve both consumers and cattle producers jointly.” I’m sure we would all love to know who that “one person” Trump respects and listens to most would be. To a shill of a representative like Brecheen, the President can still do nothing wrong, and even when he’s personally punishing your constituents, it’s not because he is doing it intentionally, but because he was deluded by an evil, manipulative grand vizier straight out of mythology … while also ignoring that the vizier would be a person Trump of course hired.
What’s becoming clear, though, is that particularly for Republicans who now see themselves in potential electoral peril in November, Trump’s grasp (or total lack thereof) of economics is becoming a terrifying liability. No doubt they fear that association with Trump will leave behind a stain that even a fortune of pricey toilet paper won’t be able to remove.
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