CNN host Jake Tapper pressed Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins on Sunday about the Trump administration imposing tariffs on a group of barren, uninhabited volcanic islands near Antarctica and home to penguins.
Heard Island and McDonald Islands, which are external territories of Australia, will see a 10% tariff imposed on its goods in Trump’s global trade war.
On CNN’s State of the Union, Tapper wondered about the “level of scholarship here behind how these tariffs were done,” pointing to Trump’s 10% tariffs on the remote islands.
“You’re imposing a 10% tariff on the Heard and McDonald Islands,” Tapper said in a clip highlighted by Mediaite. “The Heard and McDonald Islands have zero human inhabitants. They have zero exports, they have zero imports. They do have a lot of penguins. Why are you putting import tariffs on islands that are entirely populated by penguins?”
“Obviously, here’s the bottom line: We live under a tariff regime from other countries,” Rollins responded, adding that Trump officials who placed tariffs on islands inhabited by penguins are “serious, intentional, patriotic — the smartest people I’ve ever worked with.”
“Trump said he has the utmost confidence in the team and what they have built and what the have put together,” Rollins. “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.”
