Indonesia seals ‘great’ US trade deal, agrees to send 8,000 troops to Gaza

The White House announced a reciprocal trade agreement with Indonesia on Thursday while President Prabowo Subianto was in Washington to attend the first meeting of President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace”.Under the agreement, Southeast Asia’s largest economy will eliminate tariffs for 99 per cent of American goods while the US would maintain tariffs on most Indonesian goods at 19 per cent, the White House said. That is the same rate the US has set for Cambodia and Malaysia.Indonesia also agreed to address non-tariff barriers to US goods and to remove restrictions on exports to the US for critical minerals and other industrial commodities, the White House said.Indonesian and US companies also reached 11 deals this week worth US$38.4 billion, including purchases of US soybeans, corn, cotton and wheat, cooperation in critical minerals and oilfield recovery, and joint ventures in computer chips.“We have negotiated very intensively over the last few months, and I think we have reached solid understandings on many issues,” Prabowo told business executives on Wednesday at the US Chamber of Commerce.A White House statement called it a “great deal” and said it “will help both countries to strengthen economic security, promote economic growth and thereby continuously lead to global prosperity”.