MSNBC's Rachel Maddow treated viewers on Wednesday evening to a world tour of some of the stranger places that President Donald Trump slapped with tariffs.
The tariffs, part of Trump's so-called "Liberation Day," tax foreign goods from 10 to 49 percent from just about every other country — but, Maddow noted, they also apply to a few places that don't seem to have much trade with the U.S., or even many people at all, for that matter.
"May I introduce you to Jan Mayen Island?" said Maddow. "It is a volcano, volcanic island, mostly covered in glaciers, hundreds of miles from anything else in the Arctic Ocean ... it does have an airstrip, but nobody lives there. Population: zero humans — many polar bears."
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"Rest assured, we, the American people, are now protected from the predatory economic piracy of that uninhabited island," said Maddow. "Thanks to our genius strongman ruler who has put the American government to work. Donald Trump has just slapped a 10 percent tariff on Jan Mayen Island, just in case anyone ever moves up there and tries to screw us over with their Jan Mayen Island under-priced exports and stuff."
But that's not the end of it, Maddow said, because he also put a tariff on Heard Island and McDonald Islands, on the near opposite side of the world near Antarctica.
"They are only reachable by boat, and it takes two weeks by sea to get there from Australia," said Maddow. "They're totally uninhabited. Both of them. They're also active volcanoes. So, even if you wanted to move there, even the penguins might caution you. Right? But they're active volcanoes. One on each island on both Heard and McDonald Islands. I will say those volcanoes and the penguins and seals who live there, they will never menace the American economy again, as they have in the past, by flooding us with with their cheap exports of what? Like fresh air, cool breezes, a waft of eau de penguin, I don't know what do they send us? The uninhabited Antarctic volcanoes of Heard and McDonald islands were just slapped by Donald Trump today with a steep 10 percent tariff."
"Are you tired of all the winning, America?" asked Maddow. "Can you just feel the practical economic benefits that MAGA leadership is bringing to us at last? Isn't it a relief?"
Watch the video below or at the link here.
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