The Trump administration has recently implemented wide-ranging tariffs on a global scale, leading to retaliatory measures from other countries and a dramatic decline in the stock market. This move, announced by President Trump, has had an unexpected outcome: the widespread appearance of penguin memes on the internet. These memes have emerged in response to the imposition of tariffs on Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Australian territories near Antarctica that are inhabited by penguins but lack a human population. One notable meme, featuring an altered photo from a tense White House meeting, shows President Trump and Vice President JD Vance sitting next to a black-and-white bird instead of facing off against President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. Another meme depicts a penguin teaching sea gulls to aim their waste at Teslas, a possible reference to Trump’s billionaire advisor, Elon Musk. Despite the fact that the UNESCO World Heritage Convention highlights the islands as having “a complete absence of alien plants and animals, as well as human impact,” the White House included the islands on its list, imposing the 10 percent base-line tariff on nearly all goods imported into the United States. The Wednesday announcement, described by Mr. Trump as America’s “Liberation Day,” has had far-reaching consequences, raising U.S. import duties to levels not seen in over a century. New tariffs have also been imposed on the British Indian Ocean Territory, Tokelau (a territory of New Zealand), Svalbard (Norwegian islands), and Jan Mayen (home to military personnel operating a weather and coastal services station). The White House has revealed little about the calculation methodology for these tariffs, only stating that each country’s new tariff rate is based on America’s trade deficit with that nation and the exports it sends to the United States. The White House has since cut the final tariff numbers in half, but it remains unclear how Heard Island and McDonald Islands were included in the list of tariffs.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/05/world/americas/penguins-tariffs-island.html