Jakarta. Official statistics showed Tuesday that the US remained a top buyer of Indonesian goods amid a looming tariff deadline, as Jakarta’s surplus surpassed $7 billion as of end-May.

US President Donald Trump has accused Indonesia of unfair trade practices that have put American goods at a disadvantage and caused a major deficit for the world's richest country. To fix the trade imbalance, Trump threatened to slap 32 percent tariffs on US-bound Indonesian products. The tariff plan has been on a 90-day pause, giving countries such as Indonesia some time to negotiate. However, the pause is set to expire on July 9. While Indonesia has promised to ramp up its US imports, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) revealed that the trade gap between the two countries had actually widened. 

In January-May 2025, Indonesia recorded $7.08 billion in overall surplus with the US. The positive trade balance stood at $5.37 billion over the same period last year. Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, was still in power at the time. Biden was seeking to boost bilateral trade with Indonesia.

In the non-oil and gas sector alone, Indonesia’s positive trade balance with the US soared to $8.28 billion in January-May 2025. This already beat the $6.44 billion surplus recorded over the same period the previous year, data showed. Indonesia’s exports to the US amounted to around $12.11 billion so far this year as of May, with imports of American goods hitting almost $3.83 billion. 

“Electrical machinery and equipment, as well as footwear, make up the lion’s share of our non-oil and gas exports to the US,” BPS senior official Pudji Ismartini told a hybrid presser.

Washington had bought $2.22 billion of electrical machinery and equipment throughout the first five months of this year. Footwear exports reached $1.08 billion. About $1.02 billion worth of Indonesian apparel and clothing accessories made their way to the American market, BPS reported. The US also became Indonesia’s second-biggest export destination in the non-oil and gas categories, just behind China ($24.25 billion).

“China, the US, and India made up 41.16 percent of our January-May 2025 non-oil and gas exports,” Pudji said.  

According to media reports, Trump said that he did not plan on extending the negotiating period beyond July 9. As the deadline approaches, senior minister Airlangga Hartarto recently claimed that Trump’s treasury secretary Scott Bessent had welcomed Indonesia’s proposal for a “fair and square” bilateral trade. Chief negotiator Airlangga was supposed to travel to the US last month for another round of talks, but decided to meet Bessent via teleconference.

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