Tariffs Come for the Penguins

The Trump Administration thought it had gotten a good deal, assessing 10% tariffs on the penguins on Heard and McDonald Islands. But the penguins were smarter.

Welcome to another installment of Life Its Ownself. The recent tariffs announced by the Trump Administration, and the devastating reaction of the world financial system, have led us to publish this investigative analysis that was hours in the making. Remember, you can only read this dreck forceful reporting at Life Its Ownself!

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Friday, April 4, 2025

(Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Antarctic Ocean) – A troop of journalists, dispatched here by the finest news organizations in the world – the New York Times, CNN, Agence France-Presse, the Big Bend Sentinel – shuffles around the frigid landscape, stamping their feet and blowing big warm breaths into the frigid air. In the distance, snow-capped mountain are wrapped in clouds and fog.

In the foreground, a waddle of penguins meanders across the frozen turf, stopping occasionally to stare at the journalists and the Zodiac boat that brought them here from the fishing boat anchored offshore.

After a while the journalists leave the islands, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But they are not curious about UNESCO status. They will retreat to the comforts of the fishing boat and file their stories about the unusual, even silly, tariffs imposed on the islands earlier this week by the Trump Administration. As the boat fades over the horizon, the penguins wait, then assemble into what looks like an organized military formation.

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“All right, you scalawags,” cries out the Alpha Penguin, known as Alfie but never called that to his face. “Let’s get back down below and make sure production is going along.”

The penguins march in formation down into caves and crevices in the rocky surface of the island. They enter an immense subterranean complex of machinery, assembly lines and living quarters. There the penguins run a 21^st-century manufacturing operation that, were it known to the outside world, would attract far more attention than the penguins want.

It’s dinner time, and the penguins dutifully line up in a cafeteria-style line. “What, chopped herring again?” says one dismayed worker. “You’ll eat it and like it,” says the grizzled penguin food service boss known as Madge. “On Sunday, you can have free swim and search for squid or lobster to your heart’s content – unless an orca gets you!” Madge’s brassy laughter echoes off the fluorescent lights 40 feet overhead.

After dinner, the penguins return to work, fabricating parts and assembling them into utility carts that can carry both humans and cargo. As part of the quality assurance stage, prison labor – secretly provided to the penguins by the Australian government – puts each machine through extensive tests to verify its readiness for sale.

For years, the penguins have secretly sold their utility carts to the Russians, where the carts’ ugliness and shoddy workmanship go unnoticed.

“We caught a lucky break on the Trump tariffs,” says Alfie. “The Russians don’t pay tariffs on goods they sell to the U.S., so we can unload as many of these junk heaps as the Americans will buy.”

Back on the surface, night falls. Temperatures plunge as sunlight fades from the frosty tundra, then from the sides of the forbidding mountains. In the darkness, the only sounds are the gusting winds and the faint deep thrum of machinery 100 feet below.