As U.S. President Donald Trump imposed mutual tariffs on remote islands near the Antarctic, where people do not live, memes (content popular on the Internet) are continuing in the online space.
According to the New York Times (NYT), a user of social media X posted a photo of President Trump and Vice President JD Vance sitting together in the Oval Office of the White House and waving a penguin.
The netizen wrote, “Penguin wore a suit, and he couldn’t avoid tariffs on the Heard McDonald Islands. Maybe because he didn’t say thank you?”
The U.S. mocked the U.S. for imposing mutual tariffs on the Heard McDonald system, comparing it to the humiliation of Vice President Vance during Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s visit to the White House in February. When the Trump administration announced mutual tariffs on the 2nd, the Heard McDonald system, an Australian remote island near Antarctica, was also listed as a 10% basic mutual tariff.
The island is 3,200km southwest of Perth, a coastal city in western Australia, and it takes two weeks by boat to reach it. It is a barren place where there are no people and mainly penguins.
Another X user mocked the penguin by posting a picture that seemed to teach the seagulls to drop excrement on Tesla cars. It is a reference to the fact that Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, has become a heavyweight within the Trump administration.
The meme mocking the Trump administration’s mutual tariffs also included well-known foreign and security consultants.
Ian Bremmer, a U.S. political scientist who is also the head of the global political and economic risk consulting firm Eurasia Group, posted a picture full of penguins on X and said, “There was an unprecedented protest in the Heard McDonald system as residents rose up in protest of Trump’s 10% tariff.”
JULIE KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
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