Sometimes, it feels like the President in office is “grasping at straws” in an attempt to appease the right, and in this case, he literally is. Instead of addressing the elephant in the room of unduly high egg prices, Donald Trump has decided that a topic of focus should be straws โ paper straws. Not only that, but the 47th President claimed that he would be “signing an Executive Order next week” that would place a ban of sorts on paper straws.
Posting on Truth Social, Donald Trump calls for a movement “BACK TO PLASTIC!” He wrote, “I will be signing an Executive Order next week ending the ridiculous Biden push for Paper Straws, which don’t work.” Trump’s opposition to paper straws isn’t new. Many might recall in 2019, the President called paper straws “liberal,” saying that they “didn’t work.” “Stand with President Trump and buy your recyclable straws today,” advertised his campaign website, selling custom plastic straws for $15 for a pack of 10.
This move by the President is an attempt to undo the endeavors of the Biden-Harris Administration in 2024, during which Biden signed an executive order to phase out single-use plastics from food service operations, events, and packaging by 2027. For those curious, the National Center for Biotechnology Information reports that there are over 8 billion plastic straws “contaminating the world’s beaches, and about 7.5 million of plastic straws reside in America’s coastline.”
Regardless of whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, this move by President Trump to ban paper straws and return to plastic is indubitably questionable, if anything, for the environment’s sake. While his army of loyal obviously sings praises for his every decision, many Americans feel like this is a step in the wrong direction. “This is the forward thinking of the Trump admin: let’s go backward!” remarks a concerned Redditor.
“There has to be more important things he could be doing. There just has to be,” comments another. Some individuals even agree that using paper straws is undesirable, but Trump’s decision to sign a major policy on this matter is even more unpleasant.
“I hate paper straws for a lot of reasons. I don’t really use straws, in general, but still hate paper ones with a passion. However, I am not a fan of the government getting involved in something like this, especially when it’s counter to the needs of the future.”
“Pretty much on-brand for the master of strawmen,” joked a third commenter. Whatever the case, it’s a shame that much of the progression achieved by those endeavoring efforts in the environment, diversity, and other fields are seeing their work torn from their eyes with these executive orders. Very likely, Donald Trump is using this flood of major policy changes to overwhelm Americans, making them insensitive to possibly alarming changes that will have an even bigger impact on the country.
Regardless, at least customers at fast food restaurants and other food service industries soon won’t have to be compelled to deal with the weird taste of drinking through a paper straw.
