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Indonesia, US to fasten antiterrorism, trade ties

It was a lighthearted bilateral meeting between President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and his United States counterpart Donald Trump, so light that they left sensitive issues aside in favor of a commitment to boost ties in trade and counterterrorism.

Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post)
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Hamburg, Germany
Tue, July 11, 2017

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Indonesia, US to fasten antiterrorism, trade ties Powerful men: President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo (third left) takes a picture with French President Emmanuel Macron, US President Donald Trump and Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto on the first day of the G20 summit in Hamburg, northern Germany, on July 7. (AFP/Saul Loeb)

It was a lighthearted bilateral meeting between President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and his United States counterpart Donald Trump, so light that they left sensitive issues aside in favor of a commitment to boost ties in trade and counterterrorism.

At the meeting held on Saturday at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, Jokowi invited Trump to Indonesia to meet the latter’s “millions of fans,” while the hawkish US President softened his tone and expressed his wish to increase trade and investment with Indonesia.

“We’ve become friends, and we’re going to be doing a lot of deals together — trade deals. We have our whole trade delegation here, and we will start doing a lot of trading with Indonesia,” Trump said as he opened the meeting. “We do very little business, relatively, now, but we are going to do a lot of business.”

Data from the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) shows that the US invested US$1.16 billion in 540 projects in Indonesia last year, an increase from $893 million and 261 projects in 2015.

While Indonesia’s trade with the US has been a thorny issue of late, with Trump recently announcing that he would review the US’ trade “imbalance” with 16 countries, including Indonesia, the hit list issue had not been touched, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said.

Indonesia is in 15th place on Trump’s trade hit list, with a trade surplus of $13 billion with the world’s largest economy — which has become Indonesia’s biggest export destination with a 12 percent share.

The Indonesian government’s tough negotiation with PT Freeport Indonesia was also not on the table during the discussion, even though the subsidiary of USbased Freeport McMoRan has threatened to take the Indonesian government to international arbitration.

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