•Donald Trump and Indonesia President Joko Widodo
US President Donald Trump said yesterday that he had struck a deal with Indonesia — without providing specifics of the agreement — a week after threatening steeper tariffs on the Southeast Asian country.
“Great deal, for everybody, just made with Indonesia,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, saying that he worked with the country’s president directly. “DETAILS TO FOLLOW!!!”
The Trump administration has been under pressure to finalise trade pacts after promising a flurry of deals, as countries have sought negotiations with Washington to avoid Trump’s tariff threats, reports AFP.
But the US president has so far only unveiled deals with Britain and Vietnam, alongside an agreement to temporarily lower tit-for-tat levies with China.
Last week, Trump renewed his threat of a 32 percent levy on Indonesian goods, saying in a letter to the country’s leadership that this level would take effect August 1.
It remains unclear what Indonesia’s new tariff level will be under the latest deal with Washington, Indonesia’s former vice minister for foreign affairs Dino Patti Djalal told a Foreign Policy event yesterday.
But he added that insiders from the Indonesian government indicated they were happy with the new deal, adding that he expected further information in the coming hours.
Trump in April imposed a 10 percent tariff on almost all trading partners, while announcing plans to eventually hike this level for dozens of economies, including the European Union and Indonesia.
But days before the steeper duties were due to take effect, he pushed the deadline back from July 9 to August 1. This marked his second postponement of the elevated levies.
Instead, since the start of last week, Trump began sending out letters to partners, setting out the tariff levels they would face come August.
The levy he cited to Indonesia last week was unchanged from the figure he first unveiled in April.
To date, Trump has sent more than 20 such letters to partners including the EU, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia.
Canada and Mexico, both countries that were not originally targeted in Trump’s “reciprocal” tariff push, also received similar documents outlining updated tariffs for their products.
But existing exemptions covering goods entering the United States under a North American trade pact are expected to remain in place.
Analysts have warned that without trade agreements, Americans could conclude that Trump’s strategy to reshape US trading ties with the world has not worked.
“In the public’s mind, the tariffs are the pain, and the agreements will be the gain. If there are no agreements, people will conclude his strategy was flawed,” William Reinsch, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, previously told our correspondent.
