A global trade war roller coaster was not enough to distract Donald Trump from fulfilling one of his longtime priorities Wednesday: changing the federal definition of “showerhead”, a move the White House said would “end the Obama-Biden war on water pressure”.

Trump has complained for years about inadequate water pressure in American showers, sinks and toilets, and has blamed federal water-conservation standards for the problem.

“In my case, I like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair,” Trump said as he signed the executive order, which the White House said would apply to multiple household appliances, including toilets and sinks. “I have to stand under the shower for 15 minutes until it gets wet. It comes out drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous.”

“By restoring shower freedom, President Trump is following through on his commitment to dismantle unnecessary regulations and put Americans first,” the White House said in a statement on the executive order.

Some appliance experts have found Trump’s continued focus on American water pressure notable.

“It was very striking that the White House memo included toilets and shower heads as a presidential priority. It really was something,” Andrew deLaski, executive director at the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, told the Guardian in January. “But I think Donald Trump’s concerns are somewhat out of date, to tell you the truth.”

Trump’s comments on Wednesday echoed remarks he has made many times before. He claimed in 2019 that “people are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once” as a result of insufficient water pressure. “When you go into these new homes with showers, the water drips down slowly, slowly,” he said in 2023.

During his first term as president, Trump rolled back stricter energy-efficiency standards for light bulbs, again citing consumer choice as the reason for the change. At the time, Xavier Becerra, then attorney general of California, called it “another dim-witted move that will waste energy at the expense of our people and planet”. The first Trump White House also created loopholes for less efficient appliances such as dishwashers and showers, moves that were later reversed by Joe Biden.

“Biden undid this progress and the shower wars continued,” the White House said on Wednesday, claiming that Trump’s new executive order would “make America’s showers great again”.

Oliver Milman contributed reporting