By Ghazali Ibrahim 
Donald Trump imposed tariffs on islands mostly inhabited by penguins so that countries could not use them as loopholes, an official revealed.
Trump announced a 10% baseline tariff for all countries and reciprocal tariffs against approximately 60 countries that he says contribute most to the U.S. trade deficit.
The decision to place levies on the Heard and McDonald Island, which have no human inhabitants, raised eyebrows last week as countries such as Russia, North Korea and Belarus were all spared by the US president.
The US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, told CBS: “What happens is, if you leave anything off the list, the countries that try to basically arbitrage America go through those countries to us.
“There’s no postponing. They are definitely going to stay in place for days and weeks. Basically [Mr Trump] said ‘I can’t let any part of the world be a place where China or other countries can ship through them.’”
Meanwhile, the US imposed duties on almost every one of its allies, including a 10 per cent charge on Ukraine.
Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, said on Sunday that Russia was not hit by US tariffs because of the ongoing Kremlin and White House negotiations to bring an end to the war.
Russia managed to evade levies because of ongoing peace talks.
He added that it would be inappropriate to start a trade war with Moscow when so many Ukrainian and Russian lives were at stake.
Asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos why Mr Trump had decided to exempt Russia on Sunday, Mr Hassett said: “There’s obviously an ongoing negotiation with Russia and Ukraine, and I think the president made the decision not to conflate the two issues.”
He went on to suggest that Moscow could eventually be hit by tariffs after negotiations had concluded.
“It doesn’t mean that Russia, in the fullness of time, is going to be treated wildly differently than every other country,” Mr Hassett added.
Pressed on why allies such as Canada and Mexico were not granted similar exemptions, Mr Hassett said it would not be “appropriate to throw a new thing into these negotiations right at the middle of it.”
He continued: “Russia is in the midst of negotiations over peace that affects, really, thousands and thousands of lives of people.
“And that’s what President Trump’s focused on right now.”
In an interview, Mr Hassett said “more than 50 countries” had reached out to Mr Trump to negotiate following his tariff announcement on Wednesday.
“Countries are angry and retaliating – and by the way, coming to the table,” he added.
“I got a report from the [US Trade Representative] last night that more than 50 countries have reached out to the president to begin a negotiation, but they’re doing that because they understand that they bear a lot of the tariff.”
Mr Hassett also dismissed suggestions that the move would end up increasing prices for US shoppers after years of high inflation under Joe Biden, Mr Trump’s predecessor.
“I don’t think that you’re going to see a big effect on the consumer in the US because… the reason why we have a persistent long-run trade deficit is because these people have very inelastic supply,” he said.
Despite Mr Hassett’s claim that countries have sought to open negotiations with Mr Trump, senior members of his cabinet downplayed suggestions that they would be able to stave off the imposition of tariffs.
Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, told NBC that countries would not simply “wipe the slate clean” after decades of “bad behaviour”.
Mr Bessent insisted there was “no reason that we have to price in a recession” as stocks plunged more than 10 per cent on Thursday and Friday, while claiming that ordinary Americans would benefit from market chaos.
He said: “Oil prices went down almost 15 per cent in two days, which impacts working Americans much more than the stock market does.
“Interest rates hit their low for the year, so I’m expecting mortgage applications to pick up.”
Elon Musk, the government’s efficiency tsar and a close ally of Mr Trump, publicly split from the US president on Saturday when he argued for a zero tariff situation between the US and Europe.
Mr Musk, who saw more than £30 billion wiped off his net worth in two days, also criticised Peter Navarro, the Harvard-educated architect of Mr Trump’s tariff policy, claiming his Ivy League credentials were a bad thing and that he ain’t built.
