Donald Trump announced widespread tariffs, affecting almost every country and territory in the world, yesterday. And it turns out even penguins aren’t safe from from Trump’s wrath.
That’s because Heard Island and McDonald Islands have been hit with a 10% tariff on goods, despite the fact they are a couple of uninhabited volcanic islands near Antarctica
Well, uninhabited by humans. But plenty of penguins call the islands home.
Penguins Hit With 10% Tariff by Trump
The islands form an external territory of Australia and it is believed that no person has visited them for roughly 10 years. Despite being an Australian territory, Heard and McDonald Islands were listed separately from the country itself on Trump’s exhaustive tariff list. Australia also had a 10% tariff placed on it, along with other territories such as Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Christmas Island and Norfolk Island.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed his shock at Trump’s decision to include the islands on his list of tariffs, saying, “Nowhere on earth is safe.”
Norfolk Island in particular was hit hard, with a 29% tariff being placed on goods from the island. In 2023, the Island exported $655,000 worth of goods to America. The majority of these were leather footwear, totalling $413,000, according to Observatory of Economic Complexity data.
“Nowhere on Earth is Safe”
This data has been disputed by the Island’s administrator, George Plant, who said, via The Guardian, “There are no known exports from Norfolk Island to the United States and no tariffs or known non-tariff trade barriers on goods coming to Norfolk Island.”
Albanese added, “Norfolk Island has got a 29% tariff. I’m not quite sure that Norfolk Island, with respect to it, is a trade competitor with the giant economy of the United States, but that just shows and exemplifies the fact that nowhere on earth is safe from this.”
Why Heard Island and McDonald Islands have been included on the list is anyone’s guess, given not only do no humans live there, but there are not even any buildings on any of the islands. There is a fishery in the territory, but nothing apart from that and the penguins. We have not heard how they are taking the news.
However, despite this, World Bank has data which states that in 2022 the US imported $1.4m of products from Heard Island and McDonald Islands, nearly all of which was “machinery and electrical” imports. It is not stated what exactly these goods were, though.
