By Gentoo T. Adelie, Chief Diplomatic Penguin of Heard Island
It was a clear morning on Heard Island. A gentle drift of cloud played among the slopes of Big Ben, and the Southern Ocean moved against the gravel shores with its slow, eternal breath. Among patches of moss and lichen, our colonies bustled with seasonal purpose—territories reestablished, mates greeted, feathers fluffed against the autumn wind. The eastern rockhoppers had returned to their grassland burrows, the macaronis muttered among the coastal tussock, and the gentoos stood sentinel. Then word arrived—borne by a wandering albatross returning from northern skies.
The Trump administration had imposed tariffs upon us.
Tariffs. Upon penguins.
I summoned the colonies. The emperors listened in regal silence, their gold-ringed heads unmoved. The kings shuffled to attention along the icy moraine. The skuas perched nearby, and even the black-faced sheathbill—normally distracted by refuse—cocked a pale head toward the speaker’s mound.
Our indignation was tempered by confusion.
We are not exporters. We are not manufacturers. Ours is not a civilization of spreadsheets, but of rhythm and return. We recognize no currency but krill, no metric but the molt. We nest in the gullies and commune with the icy winds that polish our shores.
It is true that humans have declared sovereignty over us. Flags have been planted, letters exchanged, and acts of parliament signed in Canberra. Heard and McDonald Islands, they assert, are administered by the Australian Antarctic Division, whose bureaucrats maintain that our affairs fall under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory—though no court has ever convened upon our shores.
But let it be understood: though we permit their presence, we do not cede authority.
The king penguin does not bow to Hobart. The Heard Island shag files no petitions. And the sheathbill, should it ever stand before the High Court, will surely eat the brief.
So it was with bewilderment that we received news of the 10% tariff levied by the United States upon our territory. An island with no people, no ports, and no exports—accused of an imbalance in trade. A claim founded on mislabeled shipping data: specifically, six containers of semiconductor components manufactured in Taiwan but erroneously coded as “HRD”—Heard Island’s port code, rarely used but technically valid—instead of “HKG” for Hong Kong by an exhausted logistics clerk working the graveyard shift in Singapore.
Naturally, the memes began to circulate—relayed to us by kelp gulls who’ve developed a taste for human refuse and, consequently, smartphones washed ashore from passing vessels. These gulls, perched near research stations to pilfer Wi-Fi signals (and the occasional protein bar), have become our unwitting ambassadors to digital culture. Among their findings: images of penguins queuing at customs, passports in wing. Shags rebuffed at security checkpoints. A sheathbill with a placard reading “TAXATION WITHOUT MIGRATION.”
The images are amusing. Yet beneath the laughter lies a chill deeper than our glaciers.
The absurdity is not that tariffs have been imposed, but that the structures of power are so far removed from reality as to invent us as participants in their theatre. Our colony is not a market. Our rookery is not a trading floor. If humans mistake our ecological presence for economic threat, then it is their world, not ours, that is disordered.
Even the ecosystem watched with bemusement. The mosses clung silently to volcanic stone. The seals slumped across the glacial flats, unmoved. Life persisted as it always has.
We shall not respond in kind. We shall not embargo the sea. We have no ports to close, no envoys to recall. We shall simply continue—diving into the surf, tending our chicks, enduring the westerlies that lash our coast.
The mosses remember.
The sheathbill remembers.
The ice remembers, too.
Confidential Diplomatic Cable
From: Office of the Subantarctic Avian Council (Provisional), Heard Island and McDonald Islands
Domain: commonwealth.penguin.gov.hm
To: Bureau of Global Trade Anomalies, U.S. Department of Commerce
Date: April 8, 2025
Priority: Routine (given prevailing currents)
RE: ERRONEOUS APPLICATION OF TRADE TARIFFS TO UNRECOGNIZED BIOLOGICAL POLITY
To Whom It May Confound,
We write with a combination of courteous gravity and ice-bound disbelief upon learning that the Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands—comprising an uninhabited archipelago, 80% of which is glacier, and 100% of which is devoid of Walmart, Walgreens, or Whole Foods—has been subjected to a 10% tariff by your esteemed administration.
We presume this action arises from the alleged export of “machinery and electrical goods” originating from our domain. As no such items have been observed here since the disintegration of a scientific balloon payload in 1989, and as neither the king penguins nor the black-faced sheathbills have mastered voltage regulation, we suggest an administrative review.
Indeed, it now appears the source of this confusion lies in a series of clerical misassignments within international shipping records. Several bills of lading reportedly list the shipper’s address as “Vienna, Heard Island and McDonald Islands”—a charming bit of geopolitical fiction that, while expanding our sense of empire, sadly bears no relation to geographic or penguin reality.{1}
For clarity:
- Our economy is non-monetized and chiefly fish-based.
- Our primary industries include standing, molting, and collective thermoregulation.
- Our manufacturing sector is limited to guano, occasionally artistic in form but unfit for commercial use.
- The
.hmdomain, while charming, is not associated with logistical throughput. It is managed by a sooty albatross with a rusted antenna. - No residents, citizens, or consumers exist here in the human sense.
We therefore formally request the rescission of said tariff and the reclassification of Heard Island and McDonald Islands from “Emerging Trade Threat” to “Uninhabited Geopolitical Curiosity.” Alternatively, we are willing to accept foreign aid in the form of high-calorie fish paste, new tagging rings, or a fully functioning weather station.
For future reference, all customs declarations should be addressed to:
Gentoo T. Adelie, Chief Diplomatic Penguin
C/O The Hollow Behind the Third Basalt Outcrop
Atlas Cove, Heard Island
UTM Coordinates Available Upon Request (or clear skies)
We await your reply, though not urgently.
Warmest regards from the coldest coast,
Subantarctic Avian Council (Provisional)
P.S.
Seal No. 1: Be it known we do not seal mail with actual seals. The three elephant seals consulted regarding this matter expressed their disinterest through prolonged snoring, while the fur seals drafted a dissenting opinion consisting entirely of territorial barks. Their contribution to international diplomacy remains, much like this tariff situation, largely symbolic.
{1} The basis of error was uncovered and reported by multiple news sources, such as the following BBC article ‘Nowhere’s safe’: How an island of penguins ended up on Trump tariff list
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