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The Heard and McDonald Islands debacle was poorly reported on. It does have its own customs zone, it doesn’t fall under Australia. Some years, the World Bank
by Amezarak 2y ago
The Heard and McDonald Islands debacle was poorly reported on.
It does have its own customs zone, it doesn’t fall under Australia.
Some years, the World Bank has reported imports from the island:
https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/USA/Year/2022/TradeFlow/Import/Partner/HMD/Product/all-groups https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/USA/Yea...
- ceejayoz 2y agoI assure you the US did not import $1.3M worth of machinery from an uninhabited island. It's a data error. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/04/revealed-how-trump-tariffs-slugged-norfolk-island-and-uninhabited-heard-and-mcdonald-islands https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/04/revea...
- Amezarak 2y agoI don’t think anyone is claiming there’s secret industry on the islands. But a “data error” is probably understating it, that is what did actually appear on the bills of lading. Whether it was a bizarre innocent mistake or sort of some kind of financial scheme is unclear.
- ceejayoz 2y agoMy strong suspicion is someone misclicked a select box in a form somewhere.
- Ylpertnodi 2y ago...and nobody bothered checking?
- ceejayoz 2y agoYou've never mislabeled a package or letter? The postal/shipping/logistics service will almost certainly have gone "that's not right..." and quietly fixed it.
- Amezarak 2y agoMaybe. That’s clearly the likely case for Norfolk. Do you know if tariffs are assessed based on the country of origin in the bill of lading? The Guardian article doesn’t answer that question. I’d suspect so since that’s how everyone is counting imports and exports, but the Guardian article isn’t clear.