Comment by jcranmer
5 days ago
> People wigged out over non-reciprocal tariffs, where we tariff at 50% what they charge the US.
The "reciprocal" tariffs are based on not the tariff duties foreign countries imposed on US goods, but the trade deficit the US has with said foreign country. There's a lot of idiocy in the tariffs, but this was one of the loudest complaints people had with them.
> People wigged out at 10℅ flat rate tariffs. "Heard island penguins get charged 10%!)
Because the list of "countries" being charged made it clear that it wasn't being based on a list of countries as people understand them. Uninhabited islands and islands consisting only of US military bases being on the list were strong signs of the lack of competence in the planning for the tariffs.
And really, that's why people are complaining so hard: it is abundantly clear that tariffs are being rolled out in a botched manner by incompetent people for inane reasons, so whatever positive effect they might have is completely ruined and all of their negative effects are intensely amplified.
Its abundantly clear that narrative is being driven. Its much less clear why, or by who.
The Heard and McDonald Islands debacle was poorly reported on.
It does have its own customs zone, it doesn’t fall under Australia.
Some years, the World Bank has reported imports from the island: https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/USA/Yea...
I assure you the US did not import $1.3M worth of machinery from an uninhabited island.
It's a data error. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/04/revea...
I don’t think anyone is claiming there’s secret industry on the islands. But a “data error” is probably understating it, that is what did actually appear on the bills of lading. Whether it was a bizarre innocent mistake or sort of some kind of financial scheme is unclear.
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