Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins brushed off a question about the administration’s intention behind tariffs imposed on uninhabited Australian territories, during a CNN interview on Sunday.
The question comes days after President Donald Trump unveiled his “Liberation Day” plans to enact sweeping tariffs on nearly every U.S. trading partner. Two of the territories on which the Trump administration placed 10 percent tariffs, the Heard and McDonald Islands, are “one of the wildest and remotest places on Earth,” according to an Australian travel guide, and it is unclear if the U.S. currently imports products from the island.
“You’re imposing a 10 percent tariff on the Heard and McDonald Islands. The Heard and McDonald Islands have zero human inhabitants, they had zero exports, they had zero imports,” CNN’s Jake Tapper said. “They do have a lot of penguins. Why are you putting import tariffs on islands that are entirely populated by penguins?”
“Well, I mean, come on, Jake. Obviously, here’s the bottom line: We live under a tariff regime from other countries,” Rollins answered, to which Tapper responded, “the McDonald Islands is not imposing [tariffs].”
“I mean, come on. Whatever,” Rollins said. “Listen, the people that are leading this are serious, intentional, patriotic, the smartest people I’ve ever worked with. I did not come up with the formulas, I’m the [agriculture] secretary, I studied agriculture, . . . but I have no doubt that I speak on behalf of President Trump when he would say that he has the utmost confidence in the team, and what they have built, and what they have put together.”
“And we are unleashing a new golden age, and we will see an economy that will benefit not just every corner of America, but our farmers, and our ranchers and the people that have been left behind for far too long by both Republicans and Democrats.”
Trump’s critics pointed out last week when he made the tariff announcement that the remote islands near Antarctica do little to no trade with the U.S. — prompting viral internet memes about the penguins’ tariff war.
“It just shows and exemplifies the fact that nowhere on Earth is safe from this,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday, adding that Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs are “not the act of a friend.”