By Wonderwall.com Editors
12:49am PDT, Apr 4, 2025
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On Wednesday, April 2, President
Donald Trump implemented new reciprocal tariffs on essentially every country with which the United States engages in trade – from Algeria to Vietnam and everyone in between. But some of his targets raised more eyebrows than others: Critics were quick to point out that Trump placed new tariffs on several uninhabited islands and a territory inhabited solely by an American military base. Oops!
Keep reading for the details and to see what Trump critics had to say about the perplexing new policy…
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According to
Mediaite, the Heard and McDonald Islands – an Australian territory that's considered one of the most remote places on Earth – now faces a 10% reciprocal tariff.
Also slapped with a 10% reciprocal tariff? The British Indian Ocean Territory, a chain of islands inhabited solely by U.S. and U.K. military personnel and contractors occupying a joint military facility.
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American Immigration Council Senior Fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick took aim at President Donald Trump's new tariffs on the Heard and McDonald Islands,
writing on X, "The Heard and McDonald Islands are completely uninhabited. Population zero. I guess we're going to tariff the seagulls? It kind of feels like a White House intern went through Wikipedia's list of countries and just generated this list off of that with no further research."
He also shared
a photo of the Heard and McDonald Islands along with the caption, "Pictured: the place which is, according to the Trump White House, apparently imposing 10% tariffs on the United States. Note the total lack of any human settlements there."
Reichlin-Melnick later shared a theory that the Trump administration "generated this list [of countries to tariff] by going through the CIA Factbook list of countries, since that includes several of the unincorporated islands that various countries own, which don't appear on other lists."
He then joked of another one of the islands' main inhabitants, "These penguins have clearly been exporting cuteness to the United States. We must slap a big 10% tariff on that. Those freeloaders have been waddling around for too long avoiding the long arm of U.S. trade policy. No longer. Liberation Day is nigh!"
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Meanwhile, British politician Oliver Cooper addressed President Donald Trump's new tariffs on the British Indian Ocean Territory,
writing on X, "Can someone please tell Donald Trump that the only people in the British Indian Ocean Territory are the U.S. base at Diego Garcia? He's taxing an American military base."
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President Donald Trump said on April 2 that "chronic" trade deficits are "a national emergency that threatens our security and our very way of life."
"For nations that treat us badly, we will calculate the combined rate of all their tariffs, non-monetary barriers and other forms of cheating, and because we are being very kind — we're a kind people, very kind; you're not so kind when you're ripped off — we will charge them approximately half of what they are and have been charging us," he said.
"It's our declaration of economic independence," he added.
