Local residents were puzzled by the move, as apart from a few Kentia palm kernels exported to Europe, they had almost nothing to sell to the world .
“It was an absolute mistake,” said Richard Cottle, who runs a concrete-mixing business on Norfolk Island. With a population of just 2,000, he said Norfolk Island was “a tiny speck in the world” with no significant exports. Yet the White House still included it on the tariff list alongside major economies like China and the European Union.
Not only Norfolk, but even remote territories such as Heard and McDonald Islands near Antarctica – where only penguins live and no residents – are subject to the 10% tax.
Heard Island and the McDonald Islands, which form an Australian external territory, are among the most remote places on Earth, accessible only by a two-week boat trip from Perth on Australia's west coast. They are completely uninhabited, with the last human visit thought to have been nearly 10 years ago.
King penguins on Heard Island. Photo: Australian Antarctic Division
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who is in the midst of an election campaign, also expressed confusion over the decision, saying: "Nowhere on Earth is safe."
Data from the Economic Complex Observatory shows that Norfolk exported about $655,000 worth of goods to the US in 2023, mostly leather shoes worth $413,000. However, the island's administrator, George Plant, disputed the figure, saying that no goods from Norfolk were exported to the US.
Meanwhile, the figures for Heard and McDonald Islands are even more puzzling. The World Bank reported that the US imported $1.4 million worth of “electrical machinery and equipment” from there in 2022, but no one knows exactly what that was. In previous years, imports from the no-man’s-land ranged from $15,000 to $325,000.
Ngoc Anh (according to Reuters, Guardian)
Source: https://www.congluan.vn/ong-trump-ap-thue-len-hon-dao-khong-nguoi-khong-xuat-khau-thu-gi-sang-my-post341276.html
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