WASHINGTON (The Daily Whatever Wire)—The United States and Canada, two nations sharing the world’s longest undefended border and a single toilet paper supply chain, have agreed to tax it from both ends. On August 19 the White House slapped 50 percent tariffs on nearly twenty billion dollars of Canadian goods, including “toilet and other sanitary paper stock,” using Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930—a clause of Smoot-Hawley so radioactive that no president touched it for ninety-six years. On Monday, Canada answered with counter-tariffs on more than seven hundred American products, effective September 8. Also including toilet paper.
“Bathroom sovereignty is national sovereignty,” explained a senior administration official we invented but who absolutely exists in spirit, speaking on condition of anonymity from the newly established Office of Strategic Absorbency. “For too long, America has outsourced its softness.” Asked whether the administration understood that roughly 30 percent of American toilet paper is made from Canadian pulp, the official said the president “prefers a strong, self-reliant fiber” and referred further questions to the Department of Commerce, which referred them to Costco.
That 30 percent is not a rounding error; it’s the recipe. American mills imported two million metric tons of Canadian northern bleached softwood kraft last year because those long northern fibers are what keep a sheet of two-ply from surrendering on contact. “They just can’t switch the recipe around,” says Brian McClay, an actual pulp-market expert we did not invent, of the American brands that have bought from the same Canadian mills for thirty years. So the United States has raised the price of its own toilet paper’s main ingredient, while Canada raises the price of the finished rolls America sells back. The same goddamn roll, taxed coming and going.
Canada, for its part, is taking the standoff with characteristic politeness and a flamethrower. “We did not choose this conflict,” said Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, a real person using his actual name, while unveiling a package that tariffs, among seven hundred other things, toilet paper, “but when our economic integration is used as a weapon rather than the foundation for a win-win partnership, we need to stand up.” Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada is “at war.” Ottawa has budgeted seven and a half billion dollars for affected workers, and Industry Minister Mélanie Joly is urging citizens to join a “movement of resistance,” which in this case means buying Canadian single-ply out of patriotism, history’s gentlest form of martyrdom.
We are old enough to remember December 1973, when Johnny Carson made one joke about a toilet paper shortage and America stripped every shelf bare for three weeks over nothing. That panic was fiction. This one comes with a proclamation number. And somewhere in hell, Senator Smoot and Congressman Hawley—the men whose 1930 tariff bill helped turn a crash into the Depression—are learning that the first use of their leftover legal dynamite, after ninety-six years in the drawer, was a fucking tax on Charmin.
This is, in the only literal sense economics has ever offered the word, a shitshow. The Office of Strategic Absorbency could not be reached for comment—it does not exist yet. Give it a week.
Thanks for reading!
We’re Dana DuBois and Lawrence Winnerman, lifelong BFFs and co-hosts of The Daily Whatever Show — our independent home for smart, irreverent conversations about culture, politics, media, creativity, relationships, aging, and whatever else is shaping modern life this week.
We’re live every weekday at 10am ET with thoughtful analysis, sharp interviews, cultural commentary, humor, and the kind of conversations that don’t pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.
If you’re enjoying what we’re building, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Your support helps us keep the show independent, book fascinating guests, and continue creating smart conversations with your morning coffee.
We love you — mean it!
Americans need to take up the European tradition of the bidet - inexpensive add-ons to your toilet are available. Much neater and cleaner as well as better environmentally (it distresses me as a Canadian that we pulp our trees for toilet paper)
It's like a snake eating itself.