CBS News host Margaret Brennan grilled Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick about why President Donald Trump placed tariffs on islands inhabited by penguins.
Brennan highlighted Trump’s policy while speaking with Lutnick on Face the Nation on Sunday.
“When we saw the president stand in the Rose Garden holding up that chart that you helped make that wasn’t actually tariffs,” the host explained. “That was actually confusing to investors because it was some kind of other formula, and the countries themselves seemed kind of random.”
“Like, why are the Heard and McDonald Islands, which don’t export to the United States and are quite literally inhabited by penguins, why do they face 10% tariffs?” she asked. “Did you use AI to generate this?”
“No!” Lutnick insisted.
“Why are they on the list?” Brennan wondered.
“Because the idea — what happens is if you leave anything off the list, the countries that tried to basically arbitrage America go through those countries to us,” the commerce secretary argued. “And so the president knows that. He’s tired of it, and he’s going to fix that.”
“So basically, he said, look, I can’t let any part of the world be a place where China or other countries can ship through them,” he added. “So he ended those loopholes, these ridiculous loopholes.”