Steel is one thing, but toilet paper?

Many P&G items part of Canada’s tariffs hit list

Many Procter & Gamble Co products sold in Canada — from Febreze candles to Gillette shaving foam — will be affected by retaliatory tariffs on U.S.-made goods after Canadian authorities rejected a request for exemptions, says a P&G spokesman.

P&G said Bounty paper towels, Charmin toilet tissue and Puffs facial tissue — made in a facility in Mehoopany, Penn. — would be taxed, as would Cascade automatic dish washing detergent, Febreze aerosols, Pantene hairspray and Olay body wash and more.

“The vast majority of our Canadian products are imported from the U.S.,” P&G spokesman Damon Jones told Reuters news agency.

Jones said P&G had unsuccessfully petitioned the International Trade Policy Division of Canada’s Department of Finance for exemptions on its products. Exemptions occurred in some consumer packaged food categories, he added.

“The Canadian government has deemed that these P&G products are non-essential and therefore does not need to grant exemptions on them,” Burt Flickinger, managing director of consultancy Strategic Resource Group, told Reuters. All major consumer packaged goods companies with U.S. operations will have applied for similar exemptions, Flickinger added.

“The selection of products on the final list was informed by the feedback we received from Canadians, as well as our government’s internal analysis,” said Pierre- Olivier Herbert, a spokesman for federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau, whose department is responsible for granting such exemptions.

Canada struck back at the Trump administration this month over U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, imposing taxes on $16.6 billion of U.S. packaged goods, steel and aluminum products. It levied a 10 per cent surtax on a wide range of consumer goods from soup and whiskey to hair-care and manicure products, according to a list by the Department of Finance.

P&G, the second-largest packaged goods company in the world after Nestlé SA, said Canada accounted for about three per cent of its total revenue of US$65.1 billion last year. This amounts to just under US$2 billion in sales from Canada, according to Reuters calculations.

Nestlé had no immediate comment on how tariffs would affect its business, while Anglo-Dutch rival Unilever Plc declined to comment. Financial Post