Canada - USA Trade War commencing March 2025 #3

[sds71]

"Trade war with penguins": Trump places 10% tariff on uninhabited Antarctic islands - Salon.com

Tariffs shared by the White House included a 10% duty on imports from the barren Heard and McDonald Islands.

www.salon.com

 

[Trooper]

Trump imposes tariffs on uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands near Antarctica

Australian prime minister surprised after remote external territories – including islands home to penguins – targeted by US president

www.theguardian.com

​

Australian prime minister surprised after external territories – including tiny Norfolk Island and remote islands home to penguins – targeted by US president

Kate Lyons and Nick Evershed
Thu 3 Apr 2025 03.48 BST
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A group of barren, uninhabited volcanic islands near Antarctica, covered in glaciers and home to penguins, have been swept up in Donald Trump’s trade war, as the US president hit them with a 10% tariff on goods.

Heard Island and McDonald Islands, which form an external territory of Australia, are among the remotest places on earth, accessible only via a two-week boat voyage from Perth on Australia’s west coast. They are completely uninhabited, with the last visit from people believed to be nearly 10 years ago.


Nevertheless, Heard and McDonald islands featured in a list released by the White House of countries that would have new trade tariffs imposed.

( the SMH called it a 'parade of incompetence.')

 

[TootsieFootsie]

"Trade war with penguins": Trump places 10% tariff on uninhabited Antarctic islands - Salon.com

Tariffs shared by the White House included a 10% duty on imports from the barren Heard and McDonald Islands.

www.salon.com

 

[TootsieFootsie]

When are the first animals going to be arrested for not paying taxes

 

[IzzyBlanche]

When are the first animals going to be arrested for not paying taxes

The penguins are looking a bit nervous.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

There'll be tears before bedtime

 

[Herat]

"The never-ending parade of sloppy incompetence", indeed

Aka: NEPSI (Never Ending Parade of Sloppy Incompetence

Perfectly sums up everything since Jan 20.

 

[Herat]

Economists who study international trade policy are pretty scathing towards Trump.

" “Trump doesn’t seem to understand basic international economics. A lot of the arguments he makes, Adam Smith was refuting two and a half centuries ago in ‘Wealth of Nations,’” Greg Mankiw, an economics professor at Harvard University, told my colleagues. “I have not seen a more wrongheaded policy come out of a White House in decades.”

 

[SouthAussie]

I guess we shouldn't be surprised that Trump doesn't understand economics, or the geography of the world.


Wharton’s Dean List, representing the top 15% of the class, failed to include Trump in the year of his graduation.
A 1968 Commencement Program also showed that Trump failed to graduate with any honors, despite his previous claim that he was first in his graduating class.

One of Trump’s marketing professors at Wharton, the late William Kelley .... “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddam student I ever had.”

Donald’s sister, Maryanne, “had been doing his homework for him”

“Donald worried that his grade point average, which put him far from the top of the class, would scuttle his efforts to get accepted. To hedge his bets he enlisted Joe Shapiro, a smart kid with a reputation for being a good test taker, to take his SATs for him. That was much easier to pull off in the days before photo IDs and computerized records. Donald, who never lacked for funds, paid his buddy well.”

Wharton Professor Orts called Trump “the worst admissions mistake that the Wharton School has ever made .... "

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wharton-profs-demand-probe-claim-201601421.html

 

[Charlot123]

probably ship Chinese items through it....as with Vietnam and Singapore... but not to worry... soon there will be a big un-named uninhabited rock somewhere that will be an intermediate country. IMO

Well lots of companies sell Chinese brands under "Made in South Carolina" label. Advertised by Meta, lol.

 

[Charlot123]

I find it difficult to believe it's all Mexican cartels, too. Don't tell me that some business minded Americans are not in the game,.. they would not let Mexicans corner the market and fentanyl dealers don't care who they sell it to...

For sure. Mexican cartels have to smuggle it across the border. My bet will be on some bureaucrat in a white shirt armed with a pen.

But it is becoming a world problem, too

 

[acutename]

None of this makes sense. I've thought for awhile that Trump is suffering from severe cognitive decline.
There was no rational thinking that I can see in compiling this list.

If that is true, then this list either originated from something like him surfing around on Wikipedia for "world countries" and scribbling down the results. Or:

It was fed to him, including unpopulated islands, by.....who? And most importantly, why?

IMPORTANT EDIT: I posit a different theory in a later post.

It's not a conspiracy, it's stupidity. IMO

could be an AI mistake

 

[Charlot123]

Wisconsin supreme court race: liberal Susan Crawford beats Musk-backed candidate

Liberal judge says victory is against ‘unprecedented attack on our democracy’ after defeating Brad Schimel in the most expensive judicial election in US history

www.theguardian.com

( Sometimes, money can only buy you a cup of cold sick... ) .... bad luck, Elon.. Congrats, Susan.

'
Crawford, a liberal judge from Dane county, defeated Brad Schimel, a former Republican attorney general and conservative judge from Waukesha county, after Musk and groups associated with the tech billionaire spent millions to boost his candidacy in what became the most expensive judicial contest in American history.


“Today Wisconsinites fended off an unprecedented attack on our democracy,” Crawford said in a speech at her victory night event in Madison. “Wisconsin stood up and said loudly that justice does not have a price. Our courts are not for sale.”

Andy Borowitz joke from today: "Furious Elon Musk demands refund from Wisconsin".

 

[MadDoc]

could be an AI mistake

Artificial intelligence, or natural stupidity?

 

[SouthAussie]

could be an AI mistake

It could be. And no-one who reviewed that list or took it to the printer to have it enlargened for Trump's rose garden appearance was smart enough to pick up on any mistakes.

imo

 

[Charlot123]

I can only hope he broke into some of those minds and the republicans there for t dare get it and start acting on it. One person at a time.

Not that mind. Ted Cruz voted "nay" on Senate voting on the bill that would terminate new tariffs on Canada.

 

[Lilibet]

“Donald worried that his grade point average, which put him far from the top of the class, would scuttle his efforts to get accepted. To hedge his bets he enlisted Joe Shapiro, a smart kid with a reputation for being a good test taker, to take his SATs for him. That was much easier to pull off in the days before photo IDs and computerized records. Donald, who never lacked for funds, paid his buddy well.”

Donald’s version of DEI—-Donald’s Extreme Intelligence

 

[Betty P]

could be an AI mistake

It’s ironic that he’s in charge of the Executive Branch, who has any number of top economic experts employed there. He could have asked them for advice, but probably already laid them off with his DOGE purge.

 

[musicaljoke]

I prob won't be getting my beloved lamb that comes from Oz.

I'm sure you can still get it, but it will be more expensive. Even so, it will be worth every bite!

 

[otto]

Tariffs on penguins?

Who came up with the tariffs? Trump on his own? Who is responsible? It's completely nuts.

It's not retaliatory tariffs because there are new tariffs on goods that had no tariff until Trump imposed a tariff today.

Did Trump and his friends have two hats, one with the name of an Island or country, another with random percentages, and he matched them? Was this cooked up by Musk's AI genius? Something is seriously wrong with this - and it appears that no human brain came up with it.

Are Trump and Musk playing around with letting AI run the government?