Trump Toilet Paper Profits to Aid Migrants

A Mexican entrepreneur is taking a novel approach to show what he thinks about U.S. President Donald Trump.

The product is the brainchild of Antonio Battaglia, a lawyer originally from Guanajuato, who like many other Mexicans was offended by comments Trump made about Mexicans during his presidential campaign.

“It annoyed me and I started to look for a way to do something that would have an impact, not in a tone of mocking or revenge but in a positive way,” the lawyer told CNN Expansión.

As he comes from a shoemaking family, Battaglia’s first idea was to market shoes or clothes under the Trump moniker but when he tried to register the brand for that market he discovered it was already taken.

Unfazed, he came up with the toilet paper idea — “a product that was ironic and would remain in the market for a long time.”

He registered the trademark with the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property in August 2015, just two months after Trump officially launched his campaign.

Battaglia will make an initial investment of 400,000 pesos (US $21,600) but stresses that “the business [part] is secondary. What I want is . . . to make profits to support migrants and deportees. To start, I hope to allocate 30% of profits to organizations in Guanajuato.”

The social entrepreneur said that the problem of finding a factory to produce the paper had been overcome.

“I looked for options in China but nothing materialized. Then I found a company in Mexico that works in the business and became interested in making the product.”

It is expected that Trump toilet paper will be on supermarket shelves at the end of this year.

A prototype image of the product supplied by Battaglia shows the slogan “Softness without borders” on the packaging as well as the message, “This really does support migrants.”