US President Donald Trump announced new tariffs that include the uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands, a remote Australian territory in the Indian Ocean.
As Axios reports, the islands are “teeming” with colonies of seals, penguins, and other birds. The newly imposed US tariff rate on goods exported from the islands is 10%.
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A White House spokesperson told Axios that the islands are subject to tariffs because they are part of Australia, which is also facing a 10% duty.
Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997, the Heard and McDonald Islands are one of the most isolated places on Earth, requiring a special permit for visitors.
The Guardian reports that the islands are a two-week boat journey away from the nearest habitation, with the last recorded human visit was nearly a decade ago.
According to the World Bank, the US imported $1.4 million worth of goods from the islands in 2022, mainly categorized as “machinery and electrical goods,” although the exact nature of these imports remains unclear.
The tariffs also extend to other remote territories such as Tokelau, a New Zealand dependency with just 1,500 residents, and Svalbard, a Norwegian-administered archipelago with a population of around 2,500.
Trump’s latest tariffs target multiple countries, including China, the UK, Japan, and Taiwan. He argued that for “decades,” the US has lowered trade barriers while other nations imposed “huge tariffs” on American products.
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It is notable that Trump did not impose new tariffs on Russian or Belarusian goods, which White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt justified to Axios by saying existing US sanctions already prevent “any meaningful trade.” That position was repeated by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaking to Fox News.
Meanwhile, Trump applied a 10% “base” tariff on Ukraine and its longtime ally, the UK.
According to the US Department of Commerce, trade between Russia and the US has sharply declined since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
In 2021, bilateral trade totaled approximately $36 billion, but by 2024, it had plummeted to just $3.5 billion - the lowest level since 1992, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative.
Despite this drop, the US still trades more with Russia than with some countries included in Trump’s tariff list, such as Mauritius and Brunei.
Cuba and North Korea were also exempted from the new tariffs because, as a White House official, speaking anonymously to The New York Times, said they “already face extremely high tariffs, and our existing sanctions block any significant trade with them
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