Indonesia Seeks Special Tariff Treatment From US

Indonesia lobbied visiting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to keep the Southeast Asian nation on a list of countries that receive preferential trade terms, its foreign and trade minister said on Sunday, Reuters reported.  “President Joko Widodo has delivered Indonesia’s hope that the US will maintain the country’s Generalized System of Preferences facility,” Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told reporters after meeting Pompeo. In April, the US trade representative’s office said it was reviewing the eligibility of Indonesia, along with India and Kazakhstan, for the GSP based on concerns over compliance with services and investment criteria. “Around 53% of the goods covered by the GSP are commodities with links to products the US exports, while 35% are related to the production process of US products,” Marsudi said. Under the GSP, Indonesia gets reduced tariffs on about $2 billion worth of exports to the US, including some agricultural, textile and timber products, the Indonesia’s employers association told Reuters in July. Total exports to the US were $17.8 billion data in 2017 from Indonesia’s trade ministry showed. Indonesia ran a $9.7 billion trade surplus with the US last year.