# The US Commerce Secretary has defended the country’s decision to impose tariffs on a group of uninhabited islands with only penguins and seals. Howard Lutnick told CBS the imposition of tariffs on the Heard and McDonald islands were meant to close “ridiculous loopholes” and would prevent other countries from shipping through the islands to reach the US. Authorities in Australia were surprised about the tariffs on the islands, which sit four-thousand kilometres from Australia. Shipping products through one port to another in a process known as transshipment is common in global trade.
US defends tariffs on remote island of penguins and seals