The Heard and McDonald Islands - why does Donald Trumo want to tariff these penguins - Entry for April 2nd 2025, American Recession Day

 Few people have know of the Heard and McDonald Islands, but Donald Trump does, and he is levying a 10% tariff on the islands.  Seriously.   These islands have never ever levied any tariffs on the US, and there is a good reason for that: no human has ever lived on these islands.  The only inhabitants are penguins.  

I really have no idea why Trump has against these penguins.  The ones on South Georgia and the Kerguelen Islands were not tariffed.  

The serious issue with this is the fundamental incompetence of the people working for the administration in Washington. They list a tariff being charged by these islands of the US.  This is something that is not possible.

What it says to me is that the numbers for tariffs are not based on anything real and were just made up on the spot.  It would seem that any location that somehow made the list, and no one could be bothered to research, was just charged a 10% tariff and accused of charging the US a 10% tariff.

A first-year undergraduate who made this mistake would get a very low mark on their paper.  Somehow the people dealing with trade for the most powerful economy on earth would fail if they went to university.

This is not the only blunder,  The US is putting a 10% tariff on Diego Garcia, an American base in the Chagos Islands and part of the British Indian Ocean Territory.  Diego Garcia is the only location in the BIOT that has any people on it and they are American service people.

And that is not it only it.  The EU is getting a 20% tariff, but parts of it are getting a 10% tariff.  The parts of France that are overseas almost all have a 10% tariff, but St Pierre and Miquelon has a 50% tariff.  Reunion is getting a 73% tariff!  Not only are they all in the EU, they are all as much a part of France as Hawai'i or Alaska are part of the US.  This is very nice loophole for EU exporters as they just have to get a post box in Cayenne to reduce the tariff to 10%. Or are the Americans going to demand French business to show in which part of France they made their products?

Greenland is getting no tariffs at all.  Greenland may be Danish, but it is not part of the EU.

The incompetence is beyond stunning.  I have to laugh because what else can I do.

These are not people who can manage an economy or a country, or understand how to interact with the world.  Which we already knew from them sending their war plans out in a group chat on Signal.