oordinating economic minister Airlangga Hartarto, the country’s main negotiator in tariff talks with the United States, is scheduled to go to the US on Monday, an official told Reuters.
Airlangga is currently in Brazil accompanying President Prabowo Subianto for the BRICS conference but is scheduled to go to the United States afterwards to oversee tariff negotiations ahead of the July 9 deadline, said Haryo Limanseto, spokesperson at the Office of the Coordinating Economic Minister.
The largest economy in Southeast Asia is facing a 32-percent tariff in US markets, and Jakarta has offered to cut duties to near-zero on main US goods. To smoothen tariff talks, it has also proposed US investment in its critical minerals and offered to import more US products.
A US$34 billion trade deal between Indonesian companies – including state-owned flag carrier Garuda Indonesia and noodle making giant Indofood – and US partners was expected to be signed on Monday.
Indonesia’s wheat flour mills association will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) later on Monday to buy at least 1 million tonnes of US wheat per year from 2026 until 2030, its chairman Franciscus Welirang, who is also Indofood director, told Reuters on Monday.
“We will sign the MoU this afternoon […] we as the private sector will try backing up the ongoing tariff negotiation,” Welirang said, adding that he as the association’s chairman will sign the deal in Jakarta.
The agreement involved a higher purchasing volume than was previously agreed last week. Indofood together with other members in the association were expected to buy 2 million tonnes of US wheat worth $500 million.
The United States is Indonesia’s second-largest export market, after China, with a total value of $28.1 billion in goods shipped to the United States in 2024, according to the US Trade Representative.
The Southeast Asian country ran a $17.9 billion goods trade surplus with the United States last year.
US tariffs could reduce Indonesia’s potential growth by 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati has warned. The government has adjusted Indonesia 2025’s GDP outlook downward to a range of between 4.7 percent and 5.0 percent from an earlier target of 5.2 percent.