Jakarta. US President Donald Trump delivered Tuesday the first address of his second term to world leaders at the UN General Assembly, a speech that also highlighted his punitive reciprocal tariffs and the 19-percent-import-tax trade deal with Indonesia.

Trump got up on the podium right after his Brazilian counterpart Lula da Silva and before Indonesian leader Prabowo Subianto. Speaking for almost an hour, about four times longer than Lula and Prabowo’s statements, Trump boasted about how he had closed some “historic” deals with countries.

The US has been imposing 19 percent tariffs on Indonesian goods entering its market since Aug. 7 as part of a deal aimed at improving Washington's deficit. Jakarta managed to convince Trump to slash his originally intended 32 percent import tax, but it had to make some major concessions, including letting most American goods freely enter its market at zero tariff.

“My administration has negotiated one historic trade deal after another, including with the UK, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and many, many others,” Trump told the high-profile conference on Tuesday.  

While the US seeks to do business with all nations, Trump reminded leaders that the trade should be “fair and reciprocal”. The businessman-turned-politician then went on to defend the tariff move, saying that other countries had long “uncontrollably applied” similar import taxes on his country for years. He also accused other countries of breaking international trade rules, causing factories in compliant nations to be plundered.

“We have used tariffs as a defense mechanism under the Trump administration, including my first term, where hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs were taken in,” Trump said.  

He added: “We are using tariffs to defend our sovereignty and security throughout the world, including against nations that have taken advantage of former US administrations for decades, including the most corrupt, incompetent administration in history, the sleepy Joe Biden administration.” 

The White House reported that the US had run a $17.9 billion goods trade deficit with Indonesia in 2024, up 5.7 percent year-on-year (yoy). The US, however, enjoyed a $1.4 billion trade surplus with the Southeast Asian country last year, down 8.7 percent yoy. According to the statistics agency BPS, trade with the US remained most advantageous for Indonesia as the latter saw a non-oil and gas trade surplus of $12.13 billion between January and July 2025. However, this was still before the 19-percent-tariff kicked in, although there was already a baseline 10 percent tax on goods imported from Indonesia and elsewhere in effect since early April.

The deal sees Indonesia eliminating approximately 99 percent of its tariff barriers for US goods, ranging from agri-food and industrial products. Jakarta also made some import commitments, namely aircraft ($3.2 billion), agricultural products ($4.5 billion), and $15 billion worth of American energy.

Both Prabowo and Trump -- alongside other leaders of Muslim-majority countries -- had also met on the margins of the UN talks to discuss Gaza later that day. Trump called this “the most important meeting” as he pushed for hostage releases. 

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