Donald Trump lawmaker tries to defend imposing tariffs on penguins living on uninhabited islands
It's been nearly a week since Donald Trump seemingly kicked off a global trade war thanks to his 'Liberation Day' tariffs.
The tariffs, which the 78-year-old claims will restore the country's financial freedom and 'Make America Wealthy Again', have caused serious economic havoc especially among tech corporations, with their owners losing billions of dollars already.
Nearly every country in the world, other than Canada, Russia and Mexico, were included on the president's list of places where tariffs would be imposed, but it seems as if the Trump administration made one pretty embarrassing error when putting the list together.
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If you haven't been keeping up with the news, the tariffs mean that a percentage of the goods US citizens buy from abroad will now be taken from the producers and manufacturers and go straight into the American government's back pocket.
Now, this could see the price of an iPhone drastically increase, due to the harsh tariffs imposed on China where the Apple product is mass produced, but the government will probably make a little less money from the 10 percent tariffs they imposed on the Heard and McDonald Islands in the Antarctic.
It would be tricky to purchase anything made on those islands, given that they are uninhabited by humans and are mainly populated by penguins and seals. So, unless they're the gadget-savvy penguins from Madagascar, you're unlikely to find your latest computer or air fryer being produced there.
However, one of Trump's lawmakers has now attempted to defend the bizarre decision.
Speaking on CBS's Face the Nation, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick tried to justify the move by saying they wanted no countries to be left off the list.
He said: "What happens is, if you leave anything off the list, the countries that try to basically arbitrage America go through those countries to us. Any country. Like, we had tariffs - the president put tariffs on China, right, in 2018 - and then what China started doing is they started going through other countries to America.
"They just built through other countries, through America. And so the president knows that, he’s tired of it, and he’s going to fix that. So basically he said, 'Look, I can’t let any part of the world be a place where China or other countries can ship through them'."
Australia owns the islands, and its trade minister even suggested the tariffs were 'clearly a mistake'.
Don Farrell told ABC: "Poor old penguins, I don't know what they did to Trump, but, look, I think it's an indication, to be honest with you, that this was a rushed process."
Topics: Donald Trump, US News, Politics
James Moorhouse