Aside from climate change and pollution, penguins are now facing one more threat from humanity: President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Trump on Wednesday announced expansive tariffs on more than 180 countries and regions to retaliate against what he characterized as unfair trade practices by other countries.
While Vladimir Putin’s Russia was left out of the long list, Trump slapped 10% tariffs on Heard Island and McDonald Islands, a mostly barren, tiny outpost largely populated by penguins.
The island group is located in the middle of the Antarctic Ocean and remains among the world’s most remote places where no humans live. Administered by the Australian government as an external territory, the island group covers 140 square miles, is about 2,400 miles southwest of mainland Australia, and requires a two-week sail for a visit.
“It just shows and exemplifies the fact that nowhere on Earth is safe from this,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters Thursday, calling Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs “not the act of a friend.”Four of Australia’s external territories, including Heard Island and McDonald Islands, as well as Christmas Island, and Cocos (Keeling) Islands, received the 10% tariff floor that Trump imposed on countries with which the U.S. runs a deficit, despite near-insignificant levels of trade.
According to the World Bank, the Heard and McDonald islands exported about $1.4 million worth of goods to the U.S. in 2022, most of which were unspecified “machinery and electrical” products, while the U.S. exported about $21,600 to the islands in the same year. It is unclear how these goods are traded despite a lack of human habitation, but a report by The Guardian newspaper found that some goods may have been mislabeled as coming from the territory.
Norfolk Island, another Australian territory with a population of about 2000 people, received a 29% tariff, triple that of the rest of the country. Norfolk Island exported about $273,000 of mostly chemicals to the U.S. in 2022, while importing $52,000 worth of goods, according to World Bank data.
Trump’s tariffs on the penguin-occupied territories caused an uproar on social media, inviting sarcastic penguin memes.
One widely shared meme shows a penguin wearing a suit in place of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his row with Trump and Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office.In another meme, First Lady Melania Trump gazes at an emperor penguin in place of former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as Trump appears to avert his eyes.
“Donald Trump slapped tariffs on penguins and not on Putin,” Senator Chuck Schumer posted Friday on X.
Mike Coffin, a marine geophysicist who undertook seven research voyages to the Heard and McDonald Islands over the past four decades, said he was “astonished” that the territory was on Trump’s tariff list.
The islands have no infrastructure to support human habitation, Coffin told NBC News on Friday in an email.
Penguins are the most visible inhabitants in the area, with an estimated population exceeding 1 million, said Coffin, who is also an emeritus professor at the University of Tasmania in Australia. “Seals are also prominent.”
Although Australia established a year-round research station on Heard Island in 1947, the territory hasn’t been inhabited since it closed in 1954, he said.“The most recent visit by humans that I’m aware of was a three-week visit of amateur radio operators in 2016,” Coffin said, adding that two Australian fishing companies are licensed to catch fish surrounding the Heard Island and McDonald Islands.
NBC News has reached out to the U.S. Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration and Australia’s Foreign Affairs and Trade Department for comment.
Heard Island and the McDonald Islands and their surrounding waters are unique in Australia, having the country’s only active volcanoes, its highest mountain and only glaciers. There are currently no commercial tour operations that visit Heard Island due to high costs and tough sailing conditions.
