Heard Island and McDonald Islands are an external territory of Australia and have been slugged with a ten per cent tariff from the U.S. President during his so-called Liberation Day.
The islands are only accessible via a two-week boat voyage from Perth. The last time any human has visited the island is believed to be nearly 10 years ago.
In response, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, “Nowhere on Earth is safe.”
Heard and McDonald Islands are among several Australian external territories listed separately in the tariff list to Australia.
Other territories also featured on the list were Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Christmas Island and Norfolk Island.
Norfolk Island has a population of only 2,188 people and is about 1,600km north-east of Sydney. It received a tariff of 29 per cent, 19 points higher than the rest of Australia.
Norfolk Island’s main export to the US is leather footwear. In 2023, Norfolk Island exported $AU 1.04 million worth of goods to the US, with about $AU 658,000 being footwear, according to The Guardian.
“Norfolk Island has got a 29% tariff. I’m not quite sure that Norfolk Island, with respect to it, is a trade competitor with the giant economy of the United States, but that just shows and exemplifies the fact that nowhere on earth is safe from this,” Albanese said.
More than 180 countries and territories were included in Trump’s tariff list.
“My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day. We’ve been waiting for a long time,” Trump said at the White House Rose Garden. “It’s our declaration of economic independence.”
“It’s going to be a day that hopefully you’re going to look back in years to come, and you’re going to say, ’You know, he was right. This has turned out to be one of the most important days in the history of our country,‘” Trump said.
