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Commerce Sec'y "Explains" Why Trump Put Tariffs on Penguins [1]
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Date: 2025-04-06
The Mangled Mussolini, in his infinite stupidity, included the Heard and McDonald Islands, an Australian territory inhabited only by penguins, in his list of countries that have “ripped off America” and need to be punished with “reciprocal” tariffs. This led to worldwide ridicule, but since the Orange One is never wrong, some way had to be found to explain it. Today, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was sent forth to do the “honors.” (I’m going to wear out the double-quote key at this rate.)
Commerce secretary explains why island territory inhabited by penguins received tariffs:
“If you leave anything off the list, the countries that try to basically arbitrage America go through those countries to us. … The president put tariffs on China, right, in 2018. And then what China started doing is, they started going through other countries to America. They just built through other countries through America,” he said.
Let me explain some facts of economics to the Secretary of Commerce. (And no, I’m not an economist; it doesn’t take one to do this particular job.)
The Heard and McDonald Islands are uninhabited. Completely uninhabited. And one reason they are uninhabited is that there is almost no place to put a habitation. On occasion, a few people have been stuck there for a year or more, and occasionally even today a scientific expedition will stop by. But:
The islands, which are uninhabited, can be reached only by sea, and typically require a two-week voyage from Australia to visit.
and there have been no recorded visits for the last decade or so, except perhaps a training visit or two by the Australian navy. There is no space, no facilities, no possibility of infrastructure, no way to build a transit port such as would be needed to “arbitrage” goods through it so as to avoid the tariffs.
That’s only the half of it. Lutnick is actually correct in pointing out that a country (a real one, that is), if left off the tariff list, could well become a transfer point for goods, given the complexities involved in establishing a point of origin. However, the fact is that Trump did leave a country off the list which is perfectly suitable and capable of doing just that: Russia. Which happens to be very friendly with China these days. Which does have a long border with China across which lots of goods already move. Which has ports and airports and all the infrastructure . . . need I go on? I didn’t think so.
If Lutnick was asked about Russia, I have no record of it. What I did see is this: Lutnick says Trump tariffs on uninhabited islands prevent other countries from using ‘loopholes’:
“Why do [Heard and McDonald] face a 10 percent tariff? Did you use AI to generate this?” Brennan added. “No. No,” Lutnick said. “Look, the idea is that there are no countries left off.”
I guess Russia’s not a country any more?
Oh, BTW . . . Wikipedia, which included the tariffs in a quick update to its Heard and McDonald entry, didn’t exactly explain how it got on Trump’s list, but it did drop a broad hint:
That sure looks like AI helped generate the list, doesn’t it?
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