Donald Trump picked April 2 to roll out his signature tariff policy, hoping perhaps to avoid late night show jokes about Liberation Day on April Fools' Day. Still, along with all the fear and loathing, there was something darkly funny about some of the unintentional absurdities that the Commander in Chief served up on Wednesday afternoon.
Never heard of the Heard and Mcdonald islands? That's changed. These uninhabited patches of land close to Antarctica, accessible only via a two-week boat voyage from Perth on Australia's west coast, were hit with the baseline 10% tariff.
Why? Everyone, including the many thousands of penguins and seals on the island, would be scratching their head wondering why. The best theory put forth on X thus far was that a White House intern pressed Ctrl+A and imposed a blanket tariff on all geographical areas that were not targeted specifically with a higher slab, without bothering to look any deeper.
Trump also imposed a 17% tariff on a country that sees the US as its closest ally. That it was on even on the list will make it sting for Israel. President Benjamin Netanyahu had, just a day ago, eliminated all tariffs for US imports into Israel. That makes this imposition the unkindest cut of all. Et tu, Don-a shocked Netanyahu would have muttered under his breath.
Another seemingly random region that got hit with the 10% tariff was the British Indian Ocean territory in the Chagos Archipelago, which houses the geostrategically critical Diego Garcia military base housing both US and British troops. Crucially, their mandate includes facilitating smooth global trade flow through the Indian Ocean. No, really.
Then there is Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana, all of which are territories of France and part of the European Union (EU). Each of these have attracted the baseline tariff, and all EU would need to do to avoid the 20% tariff imposed on it by Trump it is to route trade via any of these territories-a convenient little loophole.
The next one is the clincher. There are a couple of countries in the Pacific-Micronesia and Marshall Islands-which are signatories to an agreement known as Compact of Free Association. Under this, the US provides defence support, funding grants and even access to US Social Services, in effect making them overseas territories for America. The White House has slotted both right into the 10% tariff list.
Is there a method to the seemingly endless randomness of the tariff numbers? Here's how the tariffs were calculated. The White House took the trade deficit in goods with various countries, divided it by goods imported from the nation, and then divided the outcome by two. For those with whom the US runs a trade surplus, the tariff was, rather inexplicably, levied at a baseline 10%.
What explains the tariffs in the first place? The lopsided global trade balance with China on one side and the rest of the world on the other was what some on X pointed out as the reason for Trump's moves. But as James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds pointed out, "If China is the problem, Trump should be targeting China. What he did today targets the entire world."
There are details aplenty making the 'plan' that emerged yesterday even stranger. Ecuador was slapped with a 10% tariff and was dubbed a currency manipulator. Except for one small detail -Ecuador, since 2000, has used the US dollar as its currency.
St Pierre et Miquelon, a French overseas territory and archipelago off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, was, bizarrely enough, among the handful of geographies hit with a 99% rate, the highest in the world. Francois Valentin, a political analyst, ran the numbers and figured out why. Back in July 2024, the US had imported $3.4 million worth of goods -likely crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and such. With the US exporting next to nothing, this number from a single month last year was enough for a lopsided balance of trade, and for the White House tariff formula to crank it up to the max.
It's not just obscure islands that felt the wrath of the Rose Garden's rate card. The sneaker maker that took Americana places-Nike-slipped on the tariff banana skin. Half its footwear and a tad over a quarter of its apparel is made half a world away in Vietnam, and with that country suffering a tariff strike, the stock lost 10%.
Never heard of the Heard and Mcdonald islands? That's changed. These uninhabited patches of land close to Antarctica, accessible only via a two-week boat voyage from Perth on Australia's west coast, were hit with the baseline 10% tariff.
Why? Everyone, including the many thousands of penguins and seals on the island, would be scratching their head wondering why. The best theory put forth on X thus far was that a White House intern pressed Ctrl+A and imposed a blanket tariff on all geographical areas that were not targeted specifically with a higher slab, without bothering to look any deeper.
Trump also imposed a 17% tariff on a country that sees the US as its closest ally. That it was on even on the list will make it sting for Israel. President Benjamin Netanyahu had, just a day ago, eliminated all tariffs for US imports into Israel. That makes this imposition the unkindest cut of all. Et tu, Don-a shocked Netanyahu would have muttered under his breath.
Another seemingly random region that got hit with the 10% tariff was the British Indian Ocean territory in the Chagos Archipelago, which houses the geostrategically critical Diego Garcia military base housing both US and British troops. Crucially, their mandate includes facilitating smooth global trade flow through the Indian Ocean. No, really.
Then there is Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana, all of which are territories of France and part of the European Union (EU). Each of these have attracted the baseline tariff, and all EU would need to do to avoid the 20% tariff imposed on it by Trump it is to route trade via any of these territories-a convenient little loophole.
The next one is the clincher. There are a couple of countries in the Pacific-Micronesia and Marshall Islands-which are signatories to an agreement known as Compact of Free Association. Under this, the US provides defence support, funding grants and even access to US Social Services, in effect making them overseas territories for America. The White House has slotted both right into the 10% tariff list.
Is there a method to the seemingly endless randomness of the tariff numbers? Here's how the tariffs were calculated. The White House took the trade deficit in goods with various countries, divided it by goods imported from the nation, and then divided the outcome by two. For those with whom the US runs a trade surplus, the tariff was, rather inexplicably, levied at a baseline 10%.
What explains the tariffs in the first place? The lopsided global trade balance with China on one side and the rest of the world on the other was what some on X pointed out as the reason for Trump's moves. But as James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds pointed out, "If China is the problem, Trump should be targeting China. What he did today targets the entire world."
There are details aplenty making the 'plan' that emerged yesterday even stranger. Ecuador was slapped with a 10% tariff and was dubbed a currency manipulator. Except for one small detail -Ecuador, since 2000, has used the US dollar as its currency.
St Pierre et Miquelon, a French overseas territory and archipelago off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, was, bizarrely enough, among the handful of geographies hit with a 99% rate, the highest in the world. Francois Valentin, a political analyst, ran the numbers and figured out why. Back in July 2024, the US had imported $3.4 million worth of goods -likely crabs, lobsters, crayfish, shrimp, krill and such. With the US exporting next to nothing, this number from a single month last year was enough for a lopsided balance of trade, and for the White House tariff formula to crank it up to the max.
It's not just obscure islands that felt the wrath of the Rose Garden's rate card. The sneaker maker that took Americana places-Nike-slipped on the tariff banana skin. Half its footwear and a tad over a quarter of its apparel is made half a world away in Vietnam, and with that country suffering a tariff strike, the stock lost 10%.
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