WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a move administration officials described as long overdue, the Treasury Department on Wednesday confirmed that the new 10% baseline tariff on all imports will apply in full to Heard Island and McDonald Islands, an uninhabited Australian territory in the sub-Antarctic whose primary economic activity consists of approximately 200,000 macaroni penguins standing on rocks.
The territory, which has not had a human resident since the 1950s and whose last verified export was a single weather buoy in 1992, was flagged by U.S. Trade Representative analysts as running what one internal memo called an ‘unsustainable and frankly insulting’ surplus with the United States.
‘Look, the math doesn’t lie,’ said Bret Holloway, deputy assistant for trade modeling at the USTR. ‘We import about $1.4 million in toothfish from their waters. They import zero American goods. That’s a 100% imbalance. The penguins have had it too good for too long, and Wednesday is the day the free ride ends.’
The tariff schedule released that morning also included Norfolk Island (population 2,188, mostly chickens), the British Indian Ocean Territory (population: U.S. military personnel who already work there), and the Svalbard archipelago, prompting Norwegian officials to clarify in a brief statement that the polar bears are not, to their knowledge, engaged in unfair trade practices.
Reached for comment, Australian trade minister Don Farrell sounded mostly tired. ‘It’s a two-week boat journey from Perth. Nobody has been there since 2016. They’re penguins. They eat krill and stand around. I genuinely do not understand what we are doing here, and I have asked four people now.’
Administration officials defended the inclusion, with one senior advisor explaining that exempting territories based on ‘whether anyone technically lives there’ would create a loophole ‘big enough to drive an entire fish through.’ The same official confirmed that Pitcairn Island (population 35, all named Christian) had been hit with the full 10%, and that the Vatican remains under review pending clarification of its rosary exports.
Pressed on whether the formula used to calculate the tariff — trade deficit divided by total imports, divided again by two — had been peer reviewed, Holloway said the methodology had been ‘stress tested by several of the smartest people in the building’ and was, in his view, ‘directionally close to right.’
As of press time, the macaroni penguins of Heard Island had not responded to requests for comment, though one was reportedly observed sliding down a glacier in what trade officials cautiously characterized as a provocation.