He put a Tariff on the island so countries can't use it to circumvent their own Tariffs, or at least I'm assuming. For example: China could set up a corporation there, and then use the island as the country of origin to reduce their tariffs.
It's also possible nobody fucking researched anything and there are that dumb. Who knows.
That’s not how it works. You can’t just bypass country of origin rules. Customs authorities require detailed documentation to prove where a product is made, including bills of materials, manufacturing records, certificates of origin, and clear descriptions of the factory location and processes performed. That’s what determines the country of origin. Basic processes like repackaging, sorting, or simple assembly don’t change that. If someone wants to claim a different country of origin, they’d have to shift substantial manufacturing operations, and even source raw materials locally. It’s not something that can be faked or worked around easily.
It is in fact idiotic to tariff penguins. It just shows how poorly thought out the whole plan was.
Citation: “Investigations suggest that such data may result from mislabelled shipments or clerical errors, leading to the erroneous attribution of exports to HIMI. For instance, shipments originating from other locations might have been incorrectly documented as coming from these uninhabited islands. Consequently, while records indicate exports from Heard Island and McDonald Islands, these are likely inaccuracies rather than reflections of actual trade activity.”
Bad data? There is literally no infrastructure on the islands to support import/export of goods and is one of the most remote places on earth, no ones sending goods that way.
Ok, and in your example they were caught and fined. What should be happening when caught breaking the law. And then sanction or tariff the offender.
The solution for stopping crime isn't to break all trade agreements, tariff nearly everyone, drive up costs for your own citizens, while cutting staff at all the agencies that investigate and regulate, while cutting services for the poor, so that they can justify tax cuts for the super rich. All this plan does is create chaos, hurt poor and middle class people, anger all your allies and concentrate wealth even more. And you'd rather have this than the chance that some countries are shipping illegally or getting a better deal on a trade agreement?
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u/MarketsAreLife 2d ago
He put a Tariff on the island so countries can't use it to circumvent their own Tariffs, or at least I'm assuming. For example: China could set up a corporation there, and then use the island as the country of origin to reduce their tariffs.
It's also possible nobody fucking researched anything and there are that dumb. Who knows.