Trump slaps 19% duties on Indonesia

WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS — US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the US would impose a 19 percent tariff on goods from Indonesia under a new agreement, which the Southeast Asian country said on Wednesday was reached after "extraordinary struggle".

The accord came as the European Union readied retaliatory measures should talks with Washington fail.

Trump said a deal had been struck after he spoke to Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto.

The deal will see Washington imposing 19 percent tariffs on Indonesian goods, below the 32 percent previously threatened. US shipments will not be taxed.

"This is an extraordinary struggle by our negotiating team led by the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs," Hasan Nasbi, the Indonesian president's spokesperson, told reporters on Wednesday.

Nasbi said Prabowo had negotiated directly with Trump over the phone, without giving further details.

The deal with Indonesia is among the handful struck so far by the Trump administration ahead of an Aug 1 deadline when duties on most US imports are due to rise again, Reuters reported.

As that deadline approached, negotiations were underway with other nations eager to avoid more US levies beyond a baseline 10 percent on most goods that have been in place since April.

Based on the tariff announcements through Sunday, Yale Budget Lab estimated the US effective average tariff rates will rise to 20.6 percent from between 2 percent and 3 percent before Trump's return to the White House in January. Consumption shifts would bring the rate down to 19.7 percent, but it's still the highest since 1933.

Speaking in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, Trump said he favored blanket tariffs over complicated negotiations, but his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick were keen to land more trade agreements.

Upon his arrival back in Washington, Trump told reporters that letters would be going out soon for many smaller countries, suggesting they would face a tariff of "a little over 10 percent".

It came as the European Commission, which oversees trade for the EU, prepared to target 72 billion euros ($84.1 billion) worth of US goods — from Boeing aircraft and bourbon whiskey to cars — for possible tariffs if trade talks with Washington fail.

Trump has threatened a 30 percent tariff on imports from the EU from Aug 1, a level European officials say is unacceptable and would end normal trade between two of the world's largest markets.

The list, sent to EU member states and seen by Reuters on Tuesday, predated Trump's move to ramp up pressure on the bloc and responded instead to US duties on cars and car parts and a 10 percent baseline tariff.

Meanwhile, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Tuesday he had launched an investigation into Brazil's "unfair" trading practices, a week after Trump threatened a 50 percent tariff on imports from the country. Brazil did not immediately respond to the probe.

Agencies via Xinhua