6 Weeks after “Liberation Day,” Tariffs Still Loom for “Zombia”

By Bulletin Staff

The Trump Administration is touting progress in securing trade deals in the wake of its on-again/off-again tariff war, but one country continues to be absent from the negotiating table.

That country: “Zombia.”

At his “Liberation Day” event on April 2, President Trump displayed a chart listing “reciprocal” tariff rates ranging from 10% to 50% on 185 countries.

While many in the media focused on seeming anomalies like the 50% rate for Lesotho or the 10% tariffs on the Heard and McDonald Islands, inhabited primarily by penguins, few initially noticed the 17% rate on the heretofore unknown country of “Zombia.”

Edgar Fitzgilligan, a professor of zombie economics at the University of Warrnambool in Australia, first posted about the Zombia tariffs on April 3. “I’ve been to 143 countries to study the undead’s economic impact, but I’ve never heard of Zombia. I look forward to visiting soon to meet the Zombians,” the professor wrote on Bluesky.

Internet wags quickly picked up on Fitzgilligan’s post, and memes about a fictitious island of zombies reacting to the new tariffs quickly went more viral than the zombie virus itself.

• “Tariffs on Zombia are dead on arrival,” posted a famed horror writer.
• “Horde of zombies march against tariffs,” one political scientist quipped above a picture that actually showed the recent Madagascar swarm.
• “Trump not only hitting penguins with tariffs but now the living dead too. The LIVING DEAD,” wrote a Democratic congresswoman.

The mainstream media soon took up the search for Zombia as well, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt found herself fielding questions about which continent Zombia was on and whether the administration had opened up trade negotiations with the Zombian government.

But rather than admit that administration staff had simply made a typo on the president’s chart and that the new tariffs were intended for the African nation of Zambia, Leavitt doubled down, stating, “The United States subsidizes Zombia to the tune of billions every year, and President Trump will breathe new life into our trade with the undead.”

The president himself quickly took up the issue, posting, “The ‘DEAD’ of ZOMBIA have treated the United States VERY UNFAIRLY. Not only are they eating our brains, they are LITERALLY EATING OUR LUNCH. Under our LIBERATION DAY plan, we will stop Zombia from SUCKING THE LIFE OUT of hardworking Americans.”

However, an administration source involved in putting together the Liberation Day charts admitted to the Bulletin that a staff had, in fact, mistakenly typed “Zombia” rather than “Zambia” during the preparation of the tariff charts.

“We were working on the charts all night, because everything was chaotic and last-minute,” said the source, who requested anonymity to speak freely about the internal workings of the administration. “We got to Zambia, and just at that moment Stephen Miller walked by, so naturally we were thinking about the undead, and someone wrote ‘Zombia’ by mistake.”

Another administration source confirmed the account, noting that the entry for Guyana also nearly ended up being “Ghoulyana” for the same Stephen Miller-related reason, but that typo was fixed before the charts went to print.

Fortunately for the Zombians, the new tariffs were put on hold for 90 days when President Trump announced a pause in the new rates after the stock and bond markets dropped precipitously following Liberation Day.

The Zombian government could not be reached for their reaction to the proposed new tariffs.

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