Indonesia faces a ‘perfect storm’ of downgrade fears, trade tensions and now the Iran war—and 2026 has only just started |
Indonesia faces a ‘perfect storm’ of downgrade fears, trade tensions and now the Iran war—and 2026 has only just started
Airlangga Hartato was all smiles on Feb. 19 as he signed his name to what he called a “win-win” deal. After four trips to Washington, seven formal negotiating rounds, and nine meetings with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Indonesia’s economy minister had finally secured a reduction in U.S. duties on Indonesian goods—from a punishing 32% to a more tolerable 19%.
The agreement, grandly titled Toward a New Golden Age for the U.S.–Indonesia Alliance, promised tariff exemptions for key exports like palm oil, coffee, cocoa, and rubber. In exchange, Jakarta pledged to scrap barriers on more than 99% of U.S. imports and commit to some $33 billion in purchases of American energy, aircraft, and agricultural products.
The very next day, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs—including the original 32% levy that had forced Jakarta into the talks in the first place—as unconstitutional. (Trump has since followed up with two new trade probes on Indonesia, one on excess manufacturing and another on forced labor.)
The Supreme Court’s ruling was the most visible example of bad timing in what has been a punishing few months for Southeast Asia’s largest economy, and an early test of President Prabowo Subianto’s high hopes for his tenure.
Since January, Indonesia has absorbed shocks from multiple directions at once. A warning from global index provider MSCI that Jakarta’s opaque stock market could lose its coveted emerging-market status triggered an 8% drop in markets over two days. Moody’s and Fitch both cut their outlooks on Indonesia’s sovereign debt to negative—the first step toward a possible downgrade. Trump’s tariffs, if they return, could threaten Indonesia’s export industries. Then came the Iran war, whose disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz threaten Indonesia’s fuel supply.
“The economy is heading into a perfect storm,” says Siwage Dharma Negara, co-coordinator of the Indonesia Studies Program at the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. “This is something we’ve never imagined before.”
So far, these back-to-back blows haven’t hurt Indonesia’s real economy. But higher commodity prices, a weaker rupiah, and a squeeze on government spending could hit affordability in a country where protests in response to rising fuel prices and the cost of living are already common. More broadly, analysts warn that Indonesia’s push to give the state a greater role in the economy could hit business confidence and investment, just at the moment when Indonesia needs capital to grow its manufacturing and mining sectors.
“We’re in an unusual period where Indonesia’s need for foreign capital is high, but its willingness to constrain itself in pursuit of that capital is low,” says Mattias Fibiger, an associate professor at Harvard Business School who covers the Southeast Asian country.
A “human capital” president
Prabowo Subianto took office in October 2024 with a bold target of 8% annual growth by 2029. He inherited a solid economy from his popular predecessor, Joko Widodo—better known as Jokowi—who had tried leveraging Indonesia’s abundant natural resources through a “downstreaming” drive: banning raw nickel ore exports and forcing investors to build smelters and refineries on Indonesian soil. That policy turned the country into a critical node in global battery and EV supply chains.
Prabowo has sought to expand the state’s role further still. “If you can think of Jokowi as a ‘physical capital’ president, then Prabowo is a ‘human capital’ president,” Fibiger explains.
Prabowo hoped to........