'Tariff the seagulls?' These are the remote islands on Trump's tariff list, and what they export

An uninhabited Antarctic outpost populated by penguins. One of the smallest economies in the world. An Arctic archipelago with more polar bears than people.

To quote Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, it really does appear that "nowhere on Earth is safe" from U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs.

Trump rattled markets, manufacturers and more Wednesday announcing a baseline of 10 per cent tariffs on imports into the United States — and far higher on goods from some places, notably those with high trade surpluses with the States. In enforcing his steep and broad tariffs, analysts have suggested Trump has upended the global order.

But to many observers, the most puzzling aspect of Trump's list was that it included some of the most remote and smallest territories and islands in the world. Places that, in some cases, are largely inhabited by penguins.

Like Australia's Heard and McDonald Islands in the sub-Antarctic region, one of the most remote places on earth, and which, according to the Australian government website, have only been visited by humans about 242 times since 1855.

"The Heard and McDonald Islands are completely uninhabited. Population zero. I guess we're going to tariff the seagulls?" wrote Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, on X.

With that in mind, here are some of those territories, the tariffs they face — and what they actually export.

The British Indian Ocean Territory is an archipelago of 58 islands covering about 640,000 square kilometres of ocean, about halfway between East Africa and Indonesia.

It's not a tourist destination. Access is restricted and you need a permit to travel there, according to the territory's website. It has no permanent population, but about 3,000 U.S. and U.K. military personnel and civilian contractors live on the island of Diego Garcia, according to the CIA Factbook.

Its U.S. imports totalled about $462,500 US in 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Its top commodities were computer and electronic products, followed by livestock and livestock products.

According to the CIA Factbook, all economic activity is concentrated on Diego Garcia, where "construction projects and various services needed to support the military installation are performed by military and contract employees from the UK, Mauritius, the Philippines, and the US."

The Heard and McDonald Islands in the remote Antarctic together form an uninhabited Australian territory. The mostly barren islands between Madagascar and Antarctica have two active volcanoes and can only be reached by sea. 

"Due to the extreme isolation… together with the persistently severe weather and sea conditions, human activities in the region have been, and remain, limited," says the Australian government's Antarctic program website.

And yet, for reasons not immediately clear, U.S. imports by the uninhabited islands totalled $13,590 US in 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This mostly consisted of electrical equipment and appliances, computer and electronic programs, and transportation equipment.