Among those Trump tariffed: Heard and McDonald Islands, where only penguins and US military live

Donald Trump has imposed a 10% tariff on imports from the Heard and McDonald Islands. Exactly what these imports might be is anyone’s guess.

Not all that is baffling

The Heard and McDonald Islands are not the only baffling entry on Trump’s list of “countries” on which the United States has imposed reciprocal tariffs. In the list are three other Australian external territories: Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Christmas Island, and Norfolk Island.

Of note here is the case of Norfolk Island, which has been slapped with a 29% tariff — 19 percentage points higher than the rest of Australia. Located roughly 1,600 km to the north-east of Sydney, the island has around 2,000 permanent inhabitants.

“To my knowledge, we do not export anything to the United States,” Norfolk Island Administrator George Plant, the Australian government’s representative on the island, told the Associated Press. “We don’t charge tariffs on anything. I can’t think of any non-tariff barriers that would be in place either, so we’re scratching our heads here.”

Trump has also imposed a 10% tariff on the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), which comprises the Chagos archipelago, a group of low-lying islands in the Indian Ocean, between the Maldives and Mauritius.

The largest Chagossian island, Diego Garcia, is home to a strategic joint US-UK military base. Home to approximately 4,000 American and British military personnel, it is the only currently inhabited island in the BIOT. Chagos does not have any civilian inhabitants.