This morning our Emperor in Chief, Donaldo Maximus El Trump announced that he personally had struck another trade deal, this time with the President of Indonesia.
Since Truth Social is now the official organ of the US government for announcing anything, I guess I might actually have to sign up for that horrid example of a social media site just to follow the circus but that’s a discussion for another time.
So what was the sudden impetus for cutting a trade deal with America’s 22nd largest trading partner?
Perhaps Trump’s family has a huge position in Boeing (BA) stock as this was one of his first comments after the deal was allegedly struck:
What is not funny however, is that the Indonesian government has no idea that a deal was struck!
Even CNBC reports the same as Grok on X earlier today:
This brings to mind, just what was one of the conditions for this deal?
According to this article in the Jakarta Post, this appears to be the big one:
Lower US tariffs clincher for $15.5b energy import deal, minister says
Why was this so important to the US?
This excerpt from the story tells the tale of the tape, so to speak.
The reason behind this is that there are certain fuel oils and aviation fuel that are not refined in volume in Indonesia like other OPEC members, despite it being an OPEC export nation. Hard as that is to believe after decades of independence, but the Indonesian government still has not had China, Russia, the EU members, or US assist in building a larger system of refineries to create independence from Western or Middle Eastern sources.
However, at the point of time of this announcement, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was floundering and the NASDAQ was only up because of the suspect Nvidia story planted by the company’s own blog. Thus the entire US trade regime was on television or radio today promoting the tariff war agenda starting with Scott Bessent on Bloomberg Surveillance this morning:
The days of unfair trade practices are over.
— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) July 15, 2025
Thanks to @POTUS, this Administration is laser-focused on securing the best trade deals for the American people.
The market is looking ahead and clearly understands that these deals will benefit both the United States and the global… pic.twitter.com/OrWF7zeMxA
This was followed by the Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick later on via CNBC:
It was a full court press but the reality?
Trump and his circus thinks they can intimidate the Indonesian government into submitting to the “old” days where our companies and government can obtain raw materials below the cost of other nations.
Lutnick basically said this in summary without listening to the BS of the administration:
There is one very important question that no one, I repeat no one from the administration has yet to answer:
Outside of processed energy products, select agricultural products, military goods, and some affordable tech products, what requirement is there for these nations who are so-called “second” world nations to buy our crap with 0% tariffs?
That would be 0.00 if anyone is paying attention.
In other words these are not deals that will improve America’s exports and return us to the 1950’s ‘Leave it to Beaver’ era that President Trump envisions, but to codify and silence this administration with verbal victories to continue pumping the markets up.
Perhaps it will truly take a Smoot-Hawley consequence from the serious trading partners for the US and the clown show in DC to wake up to reality.
(FYI, if you’re not cool or old, you won’t get the title pic. Sorry, not sorry.)
