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>>22859807 The list of Tariffs is neither in alphabetical nor numerical order. Why is that? Coded?
An uninhabited island, a military base and a ‘desolate’ former whaling station. Trump’s tariffs include unlikely targets
Brad Lendon
By Brad Lendon, CNN
3 minute read
Updated 3:22 AM EDT, Thu April 3, 2025
The meteorological station of the Arctic Sea island of Jan Mayan, in 2009. The small Norwegian island with no permanent residents has 10% tariffs.
Heiko Junge/NTB Scanpix/AP/File
Seoul, South Korea CNN —
The sweeping tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump on Wednesday target not only economic superpowers but also financial minnows. In fact, a White House list notes some territories with no economy, and no people, at all.
That is the exact case of the Heard Island and McDonald Islands, an Australian external territory in the southern Indian Ocean, which was hit with a 10% tariff.
The CIA World Factbook describes the uninhabited islands, listed as aUNESCO World Heritage Site, as “80% ice-covered” and “bleak” in the case of Heard Island and the McDonald Islands as “small” and “rocky.”
Economic activity there essentially ended in 1877, when the trade in elephant seal oil was ended and the human population of sealers left the remote islands, which are located en route from Madagascar to Antarctica.
A drone view shows containers on a ship on the day U.S. President Donald Trump is set to announce new tariffs, at the Port of Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., April 2, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Related article China vows to counter Trump’s ‘bullying’ tariffs as global trade war escalates
Another Australian territory targeted by tariffs is the Cocos Islands. With a population of 600 people, the territory sends 32% of its exports – ships – to the US, according to the CIA Factbook. They now face a 10% tariff.
On the opposite side of the planet,the small Norwegian island and former whaling station of Jan Mayen faces 10% tariffs. But no one lives there permanently (a few military personnel rotate in), and it has an economy of zero, according to the CIA Factbook, which calls it a “desolate, mountainous” island.
There are other places on Trump’s tariff list that also aren’t huge economic powers, to put it mildly.
Tokelau is a self-administered territory of New Zealand consisting of three atolls in the South Pacific Ocean with a population of about 1,600, according to the CIA Factbook. It has an economy of about $8 million and exports of around $100,000, the CIA says. Now, it too faces 10% tariffs.
One enclave hit particularly hard by Trump’s tariffs isSaint Pierre and Miquelon, a French territory of eight small islands near the Canadian province of Newfoundland. With a population of about 5,000 people, its “the sole remaining vestige of France’s once vast North American possessions,” the CIA Factbook says. Its exports – “processed crustaceans, shellfish,” according to the CIA – are now subject to a whopping US tariff of 50%, way more than France faces (20%) as part of the European Union.
A workers stacks completed jeans at the Afri-Expo Textile Factory in Maseru, Lesotho on March 19. The clothing industry is the tiny country's largest employer.
A workers stacks completed jeans at the Afri-Expo Textile Factory in Maseru, Lesotho on March 19. The clothing industry is the tiny country's largest employer.
Roberta Ciuccio/AFP/Getty Images