Overview

The United States of America (“US”) is currently engaged in an ongoing trade dispute with the People’s Republic of China (“China”) and ever spiraling, tit-for-tat trade tariffs are currently being aimed in both directions. Unfortunately though, in addition to its highly publicized trade war with China, the US Government is also planning to revoke the so-called Generalized System of Preferences (“GSP”), a trading facility which benefits Indonesia in the form of reduced trade tariffs.

The proposal to revoke the GSP is one of the central pillars of President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy as it applies to the country’s trade regime and the hope is that the US can move towards a positive trade balance with its main trading partners, thus generating greater profits for US companies. From this side of the fence though, the Indonesian government has expressed its unhappiness with this strategy and is planning to impose retaliatory measures on US trade if this plan ultimately goes ahead.