WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS, Jul. 15 (Reuters): President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the U.S. would impose a 19% tariff on goods from Indonesia under a new agreement with the Southeast Asian country and more deals were coming, while offering fresh details on planned duties on pharmaceuticals.
Trump announced the pact with Indonesia, a relatively minor U.S. trading partner, as he continued to press for what he views as better terms with trading partners and ways to shrink a huge U.S. trade deficit. Letters setting tariff rates for dozens of smaller countries were also coming soon, he said on Tuesday.
The deal with Indonesia is among the handful struck so far by the Trump administration ahead of an August 1 deadline when duties on most U.S. imports are due to rise again. The accord came as the top U.S. trading partner - the European Union - readied retaliatory measures should talks with Washington fail.
As that deadline approached, negotiations were under way with other nations eager to avoid more U.S. levies beyond a baseline 10% on most goods that has been in place since April.
Trump's roll-out of the policies has often been chaotic. His moves have upended decades of negotiated reductions in global trade barriers, unsettling international financial markets and threatening a new wave of inflation.
Based on Trump tariff announcements through Sunday, Yale Budget Lab estimated the U.S. effective average tariff rates will rise to 20.6% from between 2% and 3% before Trump's return to the White House in January. Consumption shifts would bring the rate down to 19.7%, but it's still the highest since 1933.
Trump outlined an Indonesia deal similar to a preliminary pact struck recently with Vietnam, with a flat tariff on exports to the U.S. roughly double the current 10% and no levies on U.S. exports going there. It also included a penalty rate for so-called transhipments of goods from China via Indonesia and a commitment to buy some U.S. goods.
"They are going to pay 19% and we are going to pay nothing ... we will have full access into Indonesia, and we have a couple of those deals that are going to be announced," Trump said outside the Oval Office. Trump later said on his Truth Social platform that Indonesia had agreed to buy $15 billion of U.S. energy products, $4.5 billion of American farm products and 50 Boeing (BA.N), opens new tab jets, though no time frame was specified.
He told reporters the deal with Vietnam was "pretty well set" but said it was not necessary to release details.
Photo from Reuters
