President Trump's Commerce Secretary has defended the administration's sweeping tariffs on strange corners of the world amid a barrage of insulting questions.

Stunned Howard Lutnick pushed back against a suggestion that AI was used to pick which nations were hit with tariffs and by how much.

CBS anchor Margaret Brennan was pointing out that the controversial policy, which has caused the stock market to plummet, targeted remote territories such as the Heard and McDonald Islands.

The islands are primarily home to penguins and have no permanent human residents, sparking questions about how they were ever brought into the equation.

'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 a 10 percent tariff?' Brennan asked on Face The Nation.

'Did you use AI to generate this?' 

Lutnick was good natured - albeit stunned - about the swipe, laughing awkwardly as he tried to defend the administration's position. 

'If you leave anything off the list, countries that try to arbitrage America go through those countries to us,' he insisted, before Brennan interjected to ask 'through the Heard Islands?'

Lutnick said Trump placed tariffs on China in 2018 and in response, 'China started going through other countries to America.

'The president knows that,' he said. 'He is tired of it and he's going to fix that.

'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.'' End the loopholes.' 

Memes began circulating almost instantly of furious penguins reacting to tariffs and meeting with Trump and Vice President JD Vance to negotiate. 

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was cornered about the same issue on CNN on Sunday.

She was asked by Jake Tapper: 'Why are you putting import tariffs on islands that are entirely populated by penguins?'

Rollins rolled her eyes and threw her head back in response, dismissively saying: 'I mean, come on. Whatever.'

'Come on, Jake,' she said again. 'Obviously here's the bottom line. We live under a tariff regime from other countries. We have too long ceded the idea that America goes first.'

But Tapper hit back, arguing that the penguins have not imposed any tariffs on the United States.

'Listen, the people that are leading this are serious, intentional, patriotic, the smartest people I've ever worked with. I did not come up with the formulas.'

Wall Street is bracing for a potential repeat of Black Monday tomorrow as markets in Australia and Asia begin opening with devastating losses, sparking fears last week's brutal sell-off could look tame by comparison.

Despite President Donald Trump claiming Sunday night that world leaders are 'dying to make a deal,' US stock futures as well as major indices in Asia tanked.

Futures for the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow all plunged between 4.2 and 6 percent — a clear signal that last week’s $6.6 trillion wipeout was just the beginning.

In early Monday morning trading in Asia — Sunday night US time - Japan's Nikkei has crated more than 8 percent. Australia was down 6 per cent and South Korea 5 per cent.

CNBC host and market analyst Jim Cramer on Saturday warned of a potential repeat of the 1987 'Black Monday' crash if Trump doesn't pull back on his sweeping tariffs.

That crash saw the Dow Jones plunge 22.6 percent in just one day — still the worst one-day drop in history. He said the current volatility could lead to a similar event.