No explanation from White House why tiny Aussie island's tariffs are nearly triple the rest of Australia's (www.9news.com.au)
from MicroWave@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 03:20
https://lemmy.world/post/27721265

Summary

The U.S. imposed a 29% tariff on Norfolk Island, nearly triple the 10% rate applied to the rest of Australia, with no explanation from the White House.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed confusion, noting Norfolk Island’s limited economic activity. The territory has a population of about 2,000 and minimal exports.

Other remote territories like Christmas Island and Heard and McDonald Islands also received tariffs, though the latter are uninhabited.

#world

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Floon@lemmy.ml on 03 Apr 03:37 next collapse

Someone he doesn’t like personally came from Norfolk Island, I’ll lay odds.

DarkCloud@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 04:01 next collapse

Nope, my bet is they set it based on the name alone and aren’t even aware it’s part of Australia.

Probably went: “Norfolk Island? Sounds like somewhere we can push around, 29%”.

They’re not sending their best people.

ProIsh@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 04:26 collapse

100% this. Morons all the way down

bobs_monkey@lemm.ee on 03 Apr 04:44 collapse

All the way up, remember that Trump is their lackey

ploot@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 03 Apr 04:30 next collapse

More likely someone he didn’t like came from Norfolk VA or Norfolk MA or Norfolk NE, or Norfolk in England or Canada, and Trump’s team (or the LLM they used to write the document) doesn’t know the difference.

takeda@lemm.ee on 03 Apr 07:29 collapse

People seem to cracked it.

It looks like he used ChatGPT to create this policy.

And ChatGPT basically calculated that trade deficit is other countries’ tariffs. Then he took that value divided by 2 and applied 10% floor.

frunch@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 09:45 collapse

Seriously?! Lol

takeda@lemm.ee on 03 Apr 15:03 collapse

This comment has even question that would provide such answers:

old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/…/ml4p1lk/?co…

nokturne213@sopuli.xyz on 03 Apr 03:48 next collapse

<img alt="" src="https://sopuli.xyz/api/v3/image_proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.pastemagazine.com%2Fwww%2Fsystem%2Fimages%2Fphoto_albums%2Fchappelle-show-memes%2Flarge%2Fchappelle-4.jpg">

motor_spirit@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 04:16 collapse

is that nelson mandela

slartibartfast@lemm.ee on 03 Apr 04:50 collapse

Nope just a Trump supporting piece of right wing shit.

WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 10:27 next collapse

The secret ingredient was hundreds of millions of dollars

PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 14:33 collapse

Money can turn anyone into what they rail against

theangryseal@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 14:57 collapse

Maybe I’m stupid but I can’t find an example of this.

I’ve seen him being critical. I’ve seen him asking the president to have empathy.

I seen one bit back when he was first elected where he said to give him a chance. At that point nobody really knew what he was going to do. We were all hoping he was just being a showman to get elected.

I’m not picking a fight, I’m just genuinely asking for some evidence that he supports Trump because I can’t find it.

OmegaMan@lemmings.world on 03 Apr 15:42 collapse

He doesn’t from what I’ve seen (at least not openly.)

Definitely said some bigoted anti-trans shit tho.

pixxelkick@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 03:50 next collapse

I’m sorry they put tarrifs on uninhabited islands lol

Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works on 03 Apr 04:09 next collapse

Those uninhabited islands were formed specifically to rip off America!

skozzii@lemmy.ca on 03 Apr 12:13 collapse

Yet none to Russia, curious?

Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 03 Apr 15:09 collapse

Trump’s mouth is Putin’s cock-holster. It’s not really all that curious.

Quill7513@slrpnk.net on 03 Apr 04:12 next collapse

bamboozle them with bullshit

Maeve@kbin.earth on 03 Apr 04:21 next collapse

I wonder if it's anything to do with average income? https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/SAL90004

Neverclear@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 03 Apr 04:31 next collapse

slrpnk.net/comment/14847360

TheBananaKing@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 04:45 next collapse

They’re just setting the tarriff to half the ‘trade deficit’ percentage.

Where the actual trade amount is trivial, this leads to ludicrous results.

dugmeup@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 08:50 collapse

Elon for loop mastery

TheBat@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 04:49 next collapse

Other remote territories like Christmas Island and Heard and McDonald Islands also received tariffs, though the latter are uninhabited.

What a weave by a certified stable genius.

Ledericas@lemm.ee on 03 Apr 09:09 collapse

He probably saw McDonald’s island is where McDonald’s is huge

joshcodes@programming.dev on 03 Apr 07:15 next collapse

Christmas Island is well known for its asylum camps… and nothing else? Stupid is really the only word.

From wikipedia:

Christmas Island’s geographic isolation and history of minimal human disturbance has led to a high level of endemism among its flora and fauna, which is of interest to scientists and naturalists. … As of the 2021 Australian census, the population of Christmas Island is 1,692.

And there’s a town there called “The Settlement”?

Good pick /s

dellish@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 07:35 next collapse

Trump’s fucking head is uninhabited yet here he is costing us a lot, so I guess that’s the same as Heard Island tarrifs, right?

Helvetica@sh.itjust.works on 03 Apr 08:58 next collapse

Because that island exports 1000 dollars worth of timber (or whatever) to America, but only imports 300 dollars worth of paint (or whatever) from America. Trumps child like brain sees that as them taking advantage of poor old America. The numbers must be equal or better for America or they are being cheated. Even though America needs more wood and the isle folk don’t need any more art supplies. He’s an idiot.

Madison420@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 11:00 next collapse

He thinks the trade deficit is a debt between two countries not the difference in trade between them.

ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 11:44 collapse

Trump’s child-like mind can only understand win-lose trade agreements. He can’t fathom a win-win, or a lose-lose.

skozzii@lemmy.ca on 03 Apr 12:12 next collapse

An explanation implies some thought was put in to these tariffs, but instead it was just based on Trump’s emotions that day.

podperson@lemm.ee on 03 Apr 15:11 next collapse

My personal guess (just a guess, since none of this makes any logical sense) is that he’s going to use the very high tariffs on those islands to help him with some creative accounting in showing overall wins when all of this is over - increasing the pittance that these islands are likely paying us already, let’s call it turning $100 into $150 - no meaningful benefit to the US, but looks amazing by the percentages.

“See, I tariff’d the whole world for a 5.5 gajillion percent increase in US revenue! I’m a big winner!”

ProfessorPeregrine@reddthat.com on 03 Apr 15:29 collapse

I think your general point may be correct, but remember that tariffed countries don’t pay anything, it is the US importers that pay and pass that along to US consumers.

Zron@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 18:01 collapse

Tariffs are really meant to increase demand for domestic production, but that can only really happen if the production exists domestically to begin with.

ProfessorPeregrine@reddthat.com on 03 Apr 18:52 collapse

That is one reason to do tariffs. However, as someone who’s consulted in a variety of industries, it’s stupid to do non-targeted tariffs like this. There’s no way this is going to rebuild industry on shore in the US, exactly as you say. That takes years or decades to even build up an infrastructure and a supply chain, not to mention that, at least recently, we’ve had low unemployment rates and no one to work the jobs anyway.

The CHIPS act was a better way to do it. If you believe you need to re-onshore an industry, then give multiple years’ warning before implementing tariffs and provide support for redeploying domestic production capacity. However, for some strange reason, the Republicans don’t like that act.

Zron@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 19:49 collapse

The US is likely never going to be a manufacturing powerhouse again.

Americans love the idea of buying American made products, but not the cost and certainly not the labor that actually goes into making them at scale.

Certainly some things need to be produced domestically, and still are, either because it’s expensive or impractical to ship them, or because it’s a national security concern. But the vast majority of products your typical American buys will never be made here, because they would instantly become luxury items.

fake_meows@lemm.ee on 03 Apr 15:12 next collapse

“Stupid is as stupid does.”

The phrase carries the meaning of someone identified as stupid through their actions rather than their appearance.

The phrase means that stupid people will do silly things, and you can single them out by looking at their methodology and results with handling tasks.

RedditRefugee69@lemmynsfw.com on 03 Apr 15:45 next collapse

I’d be willing to bed these percentages are based on the responses to WH communications (of threats), and those who did not respond at all have received the harshest penalty category.

Of course, an island with zero inhabitants is not likely to have responded.

ScrambledEggs@lazysoci.al on 03 Apr 16:13 next collapse

It’s obvious that he thinks the McDonald Island is where the fastfood chain gets their food. Since McDonald’s is America’s favorite and only source of food according to trump (probably) and since tariffs pay America, he’s thinking he’s going to make us rich. Everyone eats McDonald’s which obviously comes from the McDonald Island. They pay the tariffs and Americans get rich. Art of the deal.

Gowron_Howard@lemm.ee on 03 Apr 16:15 next collapse

They threw a dart at a globe and that’s where it landed.

Wolverdiddlyino@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 16:48 next collapse

I assume he was once insulted by Eldon Foote or one of his kids.

P1k1e@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 16:53 next collapse

Make them broke and offer to buy the land from under them

pleasegoaway@lemm.ee on 03 Apr 17:47 next collapse

I’m pretty sure that the trump regime spun two gameshow wheels: one to pick a country and another to pick a tariff percentage.

Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 03 Apr 19:02 collapse

I read that they just looked at popular top level domains in some AI and generated the tarrifs from them.

All crazy places so far seem to have their own tld, so I fully support that theory

DarkFuture@lemmy.world on 03 Apr 18:15 collapse

Easy.

Someone from that island hurt Trump’s feefees 3 decades ago.