So this was “Liberation Day”, as Mushroom Cock was calling it, the day he was going to impose new stupid tariffs on the entire world and presumably liberate the US from having a functioning economy… basically he’s putting a 10% tariff on all imported goods plus additional amounts on certain countries he thinks are really screwing the US over. Australia seems to have got off lightly compared to some countries, with these tariffs going far and wide, including the Heard and McDonald Islands. There’s just one problem with that particular place, though:
A group of barren, uninhabited volcanic islands near Antarctica, covered in glaciers and home to penguins, have been swept up in Donald Trump’s trade war, as the US president hit them with a 10% tariff on goods.
Heard Island and McDonald Islands, which form an external territory of Australia, are among the remotest places on earth, accessible only via a two-week boat voyage from Perth on Australia’s west coast. They are completely uninhabited, with the last visit from people believed to be nearly 10 years ago.
Nevertheless, Heard and McDonald islands featured in a list released by the White House of “countries” that would have new trade tariffs imposed.
The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said on Thursday: “Nowhere on earth is safe.”
So yeah, aint nobody here but us penguins. Apparently other Australian external territories have also been targeted as countries in their own right, including Norfolk Island, which does contain people but apparently has no trade relationship with the US, despite which it’s been hit with a 29% tariff, markedly bigger than the 10% we’re being hit with. And one of his other targets is the British Indian Ocean Territory, an archipelago of which only one island is inhabited, that being Diego Garcia… which is inhabited almost entirely by the American military (being as it is a military base jointly owned by the US and UK).
Interestingly, when you look at the full list of countries being targeted, Russia is conspicuous by its absence. I wonder why that might be.
