Trump’s tariffs target tiny Australian islands, including some with no people

Norfolk Island caught in Trump's tariff regime confusion, despite minimal exports, leaving locals and officials baffled.

Australia’s remote, uninhabited islands in the Antarctic and a tiny territory with barely any exports found themselves caught up alongside global heavyweights in U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff regime, leaving locals and officials baffled.

Richard Cottle, owner of a concrete-mixing business on Norfolk Island, said on Thursday (April 3, 2025) there was only one explanation when Trump unveiled a hefty 29% tariff on the tiny territory about 600 miles off eastern Australia: "it was just a mistake".

Though the rugged volcanic island in the southern Pacific does ship a modest amount of Kentia palm seeds abroad, typically worth less than $1 million a year, mostly to Europe, news of the unusually steep tariff passed through its 2,188 residents on Thursday with a mixture of amusement and confusion.

"Norfolk Island is a little dot in the world," said Mr. Cottle by phone. "We don't export anything."

Norfolk Island was among dozens of tiny territories which appeared on the same list as China and the European Union as recipients of Mr. Trump's highly anticipated tariff regime, even though they do not have a real manufacturing or export industry.

Some, like the Heard and McDonald Islands in the Antarctic, which like Norfolk Island is overseen by Australia, did not even have human inhabitants. No matter — as of Thursday, they faced a 10% tariff for exports to the U.S.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, on the campaign trail ahead of an election in a month, told the media his country did better than most with a tariff of 10% — half of what the EU was hit with and one-third of what China got — but he had no explanation for Norfolk Island.