The Claim

Signed an executive order to end the use of paper straws.

The Claim, Unpacked

What is literally being asserted?

That President Trump signed an executive order whose purpose is to end the use of paper straws. This is factually accurate. On February 10, 2025, Trump signed Executive Order 14208, titled “Ending Procurement and Forced Use of Paper Straws.” The claim, as stated, is true.

What is being implied but not asserted?

That paper straws were a problem significant enough to warrant presidential action and a place on the list of the 365 top accomplishments of a presidency. That the federal government was “forcing” paper straws on Americans. That this represents the government “working for the people.” The framing implies that an oppressive mandate was lifted, when in reality the order addresses federal building procurement and aspirationally targets state and local regulations that the executive branch has no authority to override.

What is conspicuously absent?

Any mention of what the EO actually replaced — Biden’s Executive Order 14057, a broad federal sustainability directive addressing climate goals across the entire federal government, of which single-use plastics were one small component. Any acknowledgment that straws represent 0.025% of ocean plastic pollution. Any mention that the order’s ambition to end paper straw usage “nationwide” bumps against federalism — the EO cannot override state and local plastic straw restrictions in places like California, New York, Washington, and Washington, D.C. And perhaps most conspicuously absent: any recognition that listing “ended paper straws” as a top-365 presidential accomplishment reveals more about what the list is than about what was accomplished.

Evidence Assessment

Established Facts

Executive Order 14208 exists and was signed on February 10, 2025. ¹ The order directs federal agencies to eliminate procurement of paper straws, ensure paper straws are no longer provided in federal buildings, and rescind any policies “designed to disfavor plastic straws” that were issued under Biden’s EO 14057. It further directed the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy to produce a “National Strategy to End the Use of Paper Straws” within 45 days.

The order specifically targeted Biden’s Executive Order 14057, “Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability,” which Trump had already revoked on January 20, 2025. ² Biden’s EO 14057, signed December 8, 2021, was a comprehensive federal sustainability directive that set goals for phasing out single-use plastics from federal food service operations and events by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035. Straws were one small category within a broad single-use plastics framework that included food containers, cups, cutlery, bags, and packaging.

Plastic straws constitute approximately 0.025% of the 8 million tons of plastic entering the world’s oceans annually. ³ While the absolute numbers remain significant — an estimated 8.3 billion plastic straws litter the world’s beaches, and 500 million are used daily in the United States — straws are a negligible fraction of total plastic pollution. Environmental advocates who led the anti-straw movement have acknowledged this, noting the campaign was never really about straws specifically. Jackie Nunez, founder of the Last Plastic Straw campaign, stated: “It was about single-use plastics, a way to get people to act on it in a simple, tangible way.”

The Domestic Policy Council produced a 31-page “National Strategy to End the Use of Paper Straws” in March-April 2025, as directed by the EO. ⁴ The report identified six rationales for eliminating paper straws: functionality, safety, health (PFAS), disability access, environmental impact (minimal contribution of straws to pollution), and cost. It also addressed “contract policies and terms with entities, including States, that ban or penalize plastic straw purchase or use” — signaling an intent to use federal contracting leverage against state and local regulations.

Strong Inferences

A peer-reviewed study published in Food Additives and Contaminants (August 2023) found PFAS compounds in 90% of paper straws tested, while no measurable PFAS were found in plastic straws. ⁵ Researchers tested 39 brands across paper, bamboo, glass, stainless steel, and plastic materials. Paper straws had the highest PFAS detection rate (18 of 20 brands), likely from water-resistance coatings. However, the study’s authors noted that concentrations were low and posed “limited risk to human health” given typical straw usage patterns. The most commonly detected compound was perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), banned globally since 2020. Classified as strong inference because the specific finding, while published in a peer-reviewed journal, has not yet been independently replicated by a second research team with their own sample collection.

The EO functions primarily as a culture-war signal rather than substantive policy. ⁶ The actual policy footprint is narrow: federal buildings stop buying paper straws and return to plastic ones. The federal government’s straw procurement is a rounding error in the federal budget. The order cannot override the seven-plus states and numerous municipalities with plastic straw restrictions. A proposed Federal Acquisition Regulation rule was published in July 2025 to implement the procurement change, and Rep. Claudia Tenney (NY-24) introduced H.R. 4421, the “Better Straws Act,” to codify the EO — but straws consumed at federal facilities represent a vanishingly small share of national straw consumption. The practical impact is negligible; the symbolic value is the point.

The plastics industry is the primary beneficiary, and the EO aligns with the industry’s documented policy wish list. ⁷ The Plastics Industry Association celebrated the order, with CEO Matt Seaholm declaring “Straws are just the beginning.” ProPublica reported extensively on the plastics industry’s policy agenda for the second Trump administration, which included rolling back single-use plastic restrictions, reclassifying pyrolysis facilities to exempt them from air pollution regulations, and preempting state-level plastics regulation. The paper-straw EO is the opening salvo of a broader deregulatory agenda favoring fossil-fuel-derived plastics. Grist reported that the plastics industry donated over $75 million to Trump’s 2024 campaign.

Polling data contradicts the implied popular mandate. ⁸ Surveys show 82% of U.S. voters support reducing single-use plastics in both government and private sectors. Plastic straw market share has already declined from nearly 100% to approximately 75% since 2017, driven by consumer preference and corporate decisions, not government mandates. The EO positions the administration against the direction of both public opinion and market trends.

What the Evidence Shows

The steel-man case for this executive order is not negligible. The PFAS research is legitimate science: paper straws do contain more “forever chemicals” than plastic ones, which is counterintuitive and worth public attention. Paper straws are genuinely unpopular with consumers — they degrade in liquid, they alter taste, and the individual plastic wrappers they often come in undercut their environmental rationale. If the federal government was purchasing an inferior product at higher cost because of a sustainability directive, switching back is defensible on narrow procurement grounds.

But the way this claim is presented — as one of 365 top accomplishments of a presidency, in a section called “Making Government Work for the People” — reveals something about the list itself. This is not a policy that affects the daily lives of Americans. Federal building straw procurement is invisible to virtually every citizen. The EO cannot touch the state and local restrictions that actually determine what straw consumers encounter at restaurants and cafes. The 31-page National Strategy to End Paper Straws is a remarkable document — an entire report from the Domestic Policy Council dedicated to drinking straws, produced during the same period the administration was cutting thousands of federal employees, freezing foreign aid, and restructuring entire agencies.

The deeper story is about what paper straws symbolize in the culture war. Plastic straw bans became a totem of liberal environmentalism around 2018, catalyzed by a viral video of a sea turtle with a straw lodged in its nostril. The backlash — Trump sold branded plastic straws as campaign merchandise during his first term — made straws into a tribal marker. The executive order is the culmination of that cultural arc: the president of the United States signing, with ceremony, a directive about drinking straws, while the plastics industry that donated heavily to his campaign celebrates it as “just the beginning” of broader deregulation.

The PFAS argument, while grounded in real science, is deployed selectively. The administration cites PFAS in paper straws as a health concern while simultaneously rolling back EPA PFAS regulations in drinking water and opposing the broader PFAS regulatory framework. The concern about PFAS is genuine when it supports the preferred policy outcome and absent when it does not.

The Bottom Line

The claim is literally true: Trump signed Executive Order 14208 on February 10, 2025, with the stated purpose of ending paper straw use. But the claim is misleading in context for several reasons. First, the order’s practical scope is limited to federal procurement — it cannot end paper straw use nationally, as state and local restrictions remain in force. Second, there was no federal “mandate” requiring Americans to use paper straws; the Biden policy targeted single-use plastics in federal operations as part of a broad sustainability framework. Third, the inclusion of this item on a list of presidential accomplishments — alongside economic policy, foreign affairs, and national security — is itself revealing. The federal government’s straw budget is a microscopic line item. This is a culture-war signal dressed as governance, backed by an industry that sees straws as “just the beginning” of a broader deregulatory agenda. The PFAS concern about paper straws is scientifically grounded but applied selectively by an administration simultaneously weakening PFAS regulation elsewhere. Verdict: true but misleading — the fact is real, but the framing implies far more than was accomplished.

Footnotes

1. Executive Order 14208, “Ending Procurement and Forced Use of Paper Straws,” signed February 10, 2025. Published in the Federal Register, 90 FR 9585, February 14, 2025. ↩

2. Executive Order 14057, “Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability,” signed December 8, 2021, revoked January 20, 2025. Biden-Harris Administration Fact Sheet on Plastic Pollution Strategy, July 19, 2024. ↩

3. National Geographic; Last Plastic Straw campaign; NPR, “Trump says ‘we’re going back to plastic straws,’” February 11, 2025. ↩

4. White House Domestic Policy Council, “National Strategy to End the Use of Paper Straws,” released March-April 2025. ↩

5. Boisacq et al., “Assessment of poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in commercially available drinking straws,” Food Additives and Contaminants, August 2023, PubMed ID: 37619405. ↩

6. Federal Register proposed rule, July 21, 2025; H.R. 4421, “Better Straws Act,” introduced by Rep. Claudia Tenney (NY-24). ↩

7. Grist, “Trump’s attack on paper straws is symbolic — but the plastics industry is celebrating,” February 2025; ProPublica, “The Plastics Industry’s Wish List for a Second Trump Administration,” October 2024. ↩

8. Grist polling data; market share data from NPR and industry reporting. ↩