Heard Island and McDonald Islands, the uninhabited territory where Trump has imposed tariffs

Donald Trump’s trade war knows no bounds. In his joint address to Congress in early March, the president disparagingly referred to “the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of.” Lesotho has now been slapped with 50% tariffs. But what has come as even more of a surprise is that the list of countries included in the annex to the “reciprocal tariffs” decree signed on Wednesday includes small islands and territories that do not trade with the United States. Among them are Heard Island and McDonald Islands, an uninhabited Australian external territory in the Indian Ocean near Antarctica. The islands are home to sparse vegetation, insects, seabirds, penguins, and seals. But from now on, products exported (?) to the United States will be subject to a 10% tariff.

The tariff is the same as that applied to all Australian imports, but the explicit inclusion of Heard Island and McDonald Islands, which probably even fewer people have heard of than Lesotho, has become a source of ridicule. Heard Island and McDonald Islands have been an external territory of Australia since 1947. Heard Island is mountainous, dominated by Mawson Peak, a 9,006-foot volcano, making it Australia’s highest peak. The neighboring McDonald Islands is a small and rocky place. Both island clusters have a total area of 142 square miles, roughly half the size of Lanzarote in Spain’s Canary Islands.

The islands are located about 2,200 nautical miles southwest of Perth, Western Australia. That puts them about 880 nautical miles north of Antarctica and about 2,300 nautical miles southeast of South Africa. The French territory of the Kerguelen Islands is the closest landfall and is about 240 nautical miles northwest. It takes about 10 days, depending on the weather, to reach Heard Island by ship from the Port of Fremantle, near Perth, Western Australia, according to a publication by the Australian Antarctic Program. People and cargo can also be disembarked on land by helicopter, inflatable rubber boat, or amphibious vehicle supported from a larger vessel.

The climate is cold and humid, subantarctic, and much of its territory is covered by ice and snow year-round. It has been declared a World Heritage Site and is primarily visited for scientific research. Yet despite having no economic activity, it has been assigned the international code HM and the internet domain .hm.

Other island nations and island chains around the world, including Australia's Cocos Islands, with a population of 593, also appear on the list with 10% tariffs.

However, the list does not include Russia, Belarus, North Korea, and Cuba, countries already subject to vetoes, sanctions, and exclusions that prevent significant trade. Even so, official U.S. statistics show just over $3 billion in imports from Russia in 2024.

Canada and Mexico also do not appear on the list of countries subject to “reciprocal tariffs.” In their case, they remain subject to the national emergency related to fentanyl and migration, so the new regime does not apply to them. China, however, does show up with a 34% rate, in addition to the 20% imposed under the fentanyl pretext, bringing the total to 54%, plus the tariffs on specific products imposed by Trump in his first term and by Joe Biden.

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