Not that Norfolk! The incorrect expeditions led to Trump rates on uninhabited islands and remote preferents without American trade | Trump rates

Commercial rates imposed in small Australian territories that are uninhabited or claim to have no commercial relationship with the United States seem to have been calculated on the basis of incorrect commercial data.

The data refer, at least in part, to the incorrect shipments as coming from the remote control Norfolk IslandO Heard Island and McDonald Islands, instead of their correct countries of origin, the Guardian can reveal.

Among the shipments erroneously labeled over the past five years by the territories of the island there are shipments of aquarium systems, field boots, wine and parts for a recycling system.

According to an analysis of the data on the imports and of the US shipping registers, more shipments of goods were classified as originated by the island of Norfolk or Heard and McDonald Islands when neither the address of the company, nor the port of departure for the shipment, nor the port of destination were located in those territories.

In some cases involving the island of Norfolk, which is located at 1,600 km north-east of Sydney and has a population of 2,188, the confusion seems to have been resulting from the fact that the company’s address or the departure port is Norfolk, in the United Kingdom, or the destination is Norfolk, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, in Virginia, in Virginia, in Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia, Virginia.

Norfolk Island This week was hit with a 29% rate on its goods – 19 percentage points higher than the rest of Australia, despite having claimed to have no export relations with the United States.

The decision perplexed the Australian government, with the Australian Prime Minister who said that it was “anywhere was it safe” from the Trump rates. The country of the country trade, Don Farrell, said it was “clearly a mistake”.

George Plant, the administrator of the island of Norfolk, told The Guardian Thursday: “There are no exports known from the island of Norfolk to the United States”.

But according to the data of the United States government, presented by the Economic Complexity Observatory, in 2023, the island of Norfolk exported $ 655,000 (a $ 1.04 million) in the United States in 2023, with its main export of 413,000 US $ (an $ 658,000) of leather footwear.

There is a large shoe shop on the island of Norfolk, the Franks shoes. His manager said in one and -mail to The Guardian: “We are a shoe shop that sells shoes to tourists who visit the island and do not export shoes to the United States or we have no business with the United States”.

The Guardian identified two load invoices – charges of loading shipments – for shipments containing 3,714 men’s boots of Timberland Neri who saved the port of South Riding in the Bahamas for Miami, Florida, in December 2023

The list of “Norfolk Island” load invoices as a country of origin and the address of the shipper such as Timberland, 200 Domain Drive, StraTham 03885-2575, Norfolk Island.

The address of Timberland’s company office is listed as Domain Drive, StraTham, New Hampshire on his LinkedIn page.

A spokesman for Timberland Shoes said: “We are in a quiet period and we have no comments”.

Other load invoices that seem to have erroneously listed the island of Norfolk since the country of origin include different from a company of aquariums and fountains, Oase, who sent shipments from Norfolk to the United Kingdom and steel equipment sent by Norfol Structures to Norfolk, the United Kingdom, in the United States.

Novum Structure’s address is listed on a loading policy such as 14 Hopper Way, DISS Business Park, DISS, Norfolk Island, instead of Norfolk in the United Kingdom, which is its EU headquarters, according to the Novum website.

Oase and Novum were contacted for a comment. The Guardian is not arguing that none of the companies are responsible for the errors in the scrolls.

The United States census office, the agency responsible for the collection of US commercial statistics, recognizes In his guide to commercial statistics that these reporting errors can occur and can “have a significant impact on details of raw material statistics”.

The shipping databases that the Guardian used to check the information on the charge invoice seem to rely on the documents issued by the US customs according to the requests for freedom of information, therefore it is not clear when errors were made in the process – during the export and shipping process or during the data collection process.

The errors in the shipping registers seem to have flowed towards the census of the United States and commercial data used as a basis for the calculation of the rates.

Farrell told the ABC on Friday that then the 29% rate of the United States imposed on the island of Norfolk was “clearly an error” since the island of Norfolk was part of Australia and therefore should be subject to the same rate of the rest of the country. He said the Australian government would raise the problem with the American administration.

“It is an indication that it was a hasty process,” he said. “The commercial system on which America has until yesterday was built by the Second World War. In the four -week space, the American president overturned this process. So I think it was inevitable that the errors were made and in particular including the island of Norfolk as (at) 29%rate.”

Journalists AND economists They understood the method used by the Trump administration to calculate the rates placed on other countries and territories.

It is a simple formula that produces a tariff percentage based on the country’s commercial deficit with the United States in 2024. The Guardian confirmed that this formula produces the figure of 29% using the US commercial data for Norfolk Island.

Heard Island and McDonald Islands – an uninhabited group of islands covered with glaciers near Antarctica, which is also “external territory“Of Australia – was also appointed in the list of the White House of” countries “affected by rates, with a 10% rate placed on it.

The territory has a fishing but no building or human home. Despite this, according to the export data of the World Bank, the United States imported 1.4 million dollars ($ 2.23 million) of products of Heard Island and McDonald Islands in 2022, almost all important “machinery and electrical”.

The Guardian has identified multiple load invoices that suggest that exports originated from the remote islands but largely steel or plastic imports from Europe to the United States are largely. The scrolls list the shipper address as in the Heard island and the McDonald islands rather than in Germany or Austria.

A load policy, from September 2024, refers to parts for a petty recycling system, shipped from Starlinger Co to Vienna to Oakland California, which lists Starlinger’s address such as “Vienna, Heard Island and McDonald Islands”. Starlinger Co was contacted for a comment.

Jared Mondschein, director of research at the United States Center of Studies at the University of Sydney, declared the hasty development of the tariff policy: “I am not surprised because of the lack of a thought of conventional integrity on this, there have been some mistakes that have not been captured.

“If you enter the wrong data, then you will get the wrong data. And I think in this case, if there are errors in the shipping records, which, you know, in the end they are human and these things happen, then there will be mistakes.”

The problem of commercial data can also be responsible for other remote areas aimed at rates. The Arctic island of Jan Meyer and the Archipelago of Abbonbard were affected with a commercial rate of 10% – again Despite the local relationships they suggest Few people lived there and there was very little in terms of exports.

Other territories seem to be in a similar situation, with load invoices for the shipments of Indian suppliers that are erroneously labeled as coming from the “territory of the British Indian Ocean”, a remote external territory of the United Kingdom with few inhabitants.

Takelau, a territory of New Zealand in the Southern Pacific Ocean, has also been targeted with rates, and still some shipments have been erroneously labeled as suppliers from the island, as an expedition of pergola parts from Türkiye.

The White House was contacted for a comment.