Meeting The US Ambassador, The Minister Of Trade Lobbyed So That Indonesia Would Not Be Affected By Trump's Policy

The Minister of Trade (Mendag) Budi Santoso admitted that he had met with the United States Ambassador to Indonesia. (Photo: Mery Handayani/VOI)

JAKARTA - The Minister of Trade (Mendag) Budi Santoso admitted that he had met with the United States Ambassador to Indonesia.

The meeting discussed efforts to prevent Indonesia from being affected by President Donald Trump's policies.

Budi said Indonesia must carry out mitigation of President Donald Trump's policy to maintain a trade surplus with the United States (US). Moreover, the trade surplus of Indonesia-US is the second largest from Indonesia-India.

"So we met with the US Ambassador earlier. So in principle, we have to mitigate Trump's policies, especially," he said when met at the Ministry of Trade Office, Jakarta, Friday, March 7.

During the meeting, continued Budi, the US Ambassador also agreed to maintain trade relations by not taking policies that had a negative impact on the two countries.

Furthermore, Budi also asked the US government to maintain this relationship by not conveying negarative issues about Indonesia.

"We have discussed at length with the US Ambassador. We are in communication with the US, maybe not as effective as our communication, for example with Japan or the ASEAN country. So we said earlier that there should be no negative issues about Indonesia, about investment, about trade," he said.

Budi said, as a follow-up to today's meeting, there will be a meeting with businesses between Indonesian and US entrepreneurs. The goal is to equalize the perception of trade.

"So the ambassador also said that he agreed that there must be a good relationship. Don't let us be affected ( Trump's policy), hopefully not. If we are optimistic, with the Ambassador, we are optimistic. With a meeting like this, hopefully, our cooperation relationship will get better," he said.