Way back when there was an American filament company that sold… very reasonably priced filament that actually printed well. As they got more popular they couldn’t keep up with demand and it seemed like they started cutting corners. This resulted in their filament not having a consistent diameter as well as the occasional foreign object in the filament (a bit of charred plastic?), which lead to jams for many of us. They ultimately went out of business due to their reputation of struggling to fill orders and inconsistent quality.

If you still have the chunk of filament you cut off and also have some calipers I suggest measuring the end that you were trying to feed into your extruder. You could have had a physical clog, especially if your extruder was clicking.