Feel exhausted after spending the day reading about Donald Trump’s eye-watering tariff plan and its ominous impact on the world’s economy? Fear not, POLITICO has prepared a selection of the craziest things in the United States’ tariff lists in case you want to laugh … or cry.
Europe isn’t just Europe, after all. Thanks to pesky old colonialism, there are European territories around the world, and many of them are set to experience wildly different tariff treatment from taxman Trump.
France, but not all of France
The U.S. administration singled out several French overseas territories for higher tariffs, which President Emmanuel Macron slammed as “exorbitant.” As a result, exports from some of those territories are penalized or advantaged compared to the rest of French and European Union exports.
Then there’s Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean, French Guiana in South America and the islands of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean. Those French overseas territories are part of the EU, but the Trump administration imposed only 10 percent duties on their exports — half of what France itself faces.
One could argue that this different treatment could make sense, as these territories have a special economic and legal status and are sometimes subject to different rules. But what about Réunion? The volcanic island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean has the same legal status but faces 37 percent duties, a lot more than the 20 percent imposed on French and EU exports.
St. Pierre and Lesotho? A bigger threat than China!
Speaking of French islands, have you ever heard of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon? You should, as the small French archipelago is apparently seen as a major threat by the U.S. administration.
Exports coming from these minute French islands close to Canada will face the highest level of U.S. tariffs, 50 percent. The same goes for Lesotho, the African country enclaved in South Africa. Their exports face worse treatment than Chinese goods, which will face duties of 34 percent.
For Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon there is at least an explanation: The only trade between the French archipelago and the U.S. last year consisted of $3.4 million in exports to the U.S. with nothing going the other way, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Punitive on penguins …
The Trump administration’s tariff on uninhabited (except by penguins) Heard and McDonald islands have sparked a wave of memes.
While it was the Australian-ruled aquatic birds that took all the headlines for being hit with a 10 percent “retaliatory” tariff, spare a thought for the penguins that find themselves under European jurisdiction.
Only 15 of the 778 islands that constitute the Falkland Islands, a United Kingdom overseas territory, are inhabited by humans. Overall, penguins outnumber people by around 300 to 1.
That hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from slapping Falklanders with a feather-freezing 41 percent tariff. The U.K., meanwhile, did a good enough job of sweet-talking Trump to only be bludgeoned with a 10 percent tariff.
… but soft on seals
Trump’s tariffs also came after a Norwegian island with a native population of exactly zero people. Jan Mayen, located northeast of Iceland, was hit with a 10 percent tariff despite having virtually no economy. The only people stationed there are meteorologists and Norwegian soldiers — and they’re vastly outnumbered by seals.
Also on America’s hitlist is Svalbard, another Norwegian island territory. Svalbard used to have a mining industry, but its 3,000-strong human population now works mainly in tourism. The last active mine is closing this year.
The U.S. actually had a trade surplus with the two islands in 2024, albeit of just $400,000, and neither Svalbard nor Jan Mayen exported anything to the U.S. So Svalbard’s seals can presumably return to the important business of evading polar bears rather than navigating international trade barriers.
Norway, meanwhile, faces tariffs of 16 percent.
Why Curaçao?
A former Dutch colony in the Caribbean, Curaçao is still part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and is classified by the EU as an Overseas Country and Territory, though it isn’t part of the EU’s internal market. As an OCT the island has duty-free and quota-free access to the EU market.
The U.S. had a trade surplus with Curaçao of almost $800 million in 2024, exporting mostly oil, automotive goods and electronics. This could be why the island country of fewer than 150,000 people was targeted with just a 10 percent tariff, as opposed to the 20 percent rate slapped on the Netherlands and the rest of the EU.
Don’t forget the math
The U.S. seems to be figuring out how to set its tariffs using a very simple formula, according to ‘Wisdom of Crowds’ author James Surowiecki. Instead of tariff rates and nontariff barriers, as the White House claimed, the former financial columnist for The New Yorker said that “for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country’s exports to us.”
But for certain cases, like Curaçao and Jan Mayen, which either have a trade deficit with the U.S. or no permanent population, it begs the question whether some of Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs make sense at all.
Daniel Desrochers and Joe Stanley-Smith contributed to this report.
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