Donald Trump has been mocked for starting a trade war with an uninhabited Antarctic island where only penguins and seals live.
On Wednesday night, the Trump administration announced wide-ranging tariffs that the US would be imposing on imports from the rest of the world.
The president has put a universal 10 per cent tariff on all imports into the US, with higher rates for what Trump has called the “worst offenders.”
This includes the European Union (20%), China (54%) and Japan (24%).
But among the tariffs, there were some more peculiar decisions, such as the decision to impose a 10 per cent tariff on the Heard and McDonald Islands – an uninhabited territory in Antarctica.
The islands form an external territory of Australia and are only accessible via a two-week boat trip. As one of the most remote places on Earth, the islands have no permanent human settlers, with most of the population made up by penguins and seals.
The Trump administration has put a 10 percent tariff on the Heard Island and McDonald which has a population of 0 people and is inhabited only by penguins. pic.twitter.com/KCmb9nBIYD
— WarMonitor(@WarMonitor3) April 2, 2025
At the same time, two nations who avoided tariffs were Russia and North Korea, which didn’t go unnoticed.
One person wrote: “He tariffed penguins but not Russia. Got it.”
He tariffed penguins but not Russia. Got it https://t.co/Yq3Bp2BEO7
— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini)(@AdamKinzinger) April 2, 2025
Because the Heard and McDonald Islands are external territories of Australia, they were listed separately to the country.
Despite the fact the territory only has a fishery, export date from the World Bank says the US imported US$1.4m of products from Heard Island and McDonald Islands in 2022, which was almost all “machinery and electrical” imports, the Guardian reports.
In the five years prior, imports from Heard Island and McDonald Islands ranged from US$15,000 to US$325,000 per year.
Another territory that Trump declared a trade war on was Norfolk Island, which has a population of 2,188, and was slapped with a tariff of 29 per cent, 19 percentage points more than Australia.
The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said on Thursday: “Nowhere on earth is safe.”
He continued: “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.”
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