US President Trump has successfully used tariff threats to achieve economic, political and even personal goals. These threats, reminiscent of colonialism, have secured submission and concessions.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

After hearing the 2024 US elections, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto respectfully stood up in his Jakarta office to call to congratulate the winner.

Trump bragged about his tariff offer to Indonesia in mid-July 2025, flattering its president profusely. After hesitating initially, former General Prabowo had agreed to join BRICS, despite Trump’s clear disapproval.

“I spoke to their really great president, very popular, very strong, smart. And we made the deal. We will pay no tariffs…they are giving us access to Indonesia … the other part is they are going to pay 19% and we are going to pay nothing.”

An Indian commentator noted, “Those words say it all. This deal is clearly one-sided, and it should bother the whole world.” Americans, not Indonesians, will pay tariffs on imports from Indonesia.

The US is Indonesia’s second-largest export market, importing apparel, palm oil, footwear, and cosmetics. Initially, Trump had threatened a 32% tariff on such imports.

This has been reduced to 19%, still almost four times more than last year! In 2024, Indonesian exports to the US were taxed at 5% on average. The Indonesian president has not complained but instead seemed relieved.

Nadia Malyanah Azman

Indonesia will lose not only exports, but also growth and jobs. As Trump loves to brag, he added insult to injury as he could not resist reiterating: “They will pay 19%, and we will pay nothing.”

Guaranteed sales
Indonesia will also buy $15 billion of US oil and gas, $4.5 billion of farm produce, and 50 Boeing jets. But the 2019 Lion Air plane tragedy, which the US plane manufacturer quickly blamed on Indonesian pilots, is still alive in the national memory.

Boeing’s reputation worldwide has not recovered from the investigation into the Nairobi air crash involving the same plane model, which led to its grounding.

Indonesia is among the US’s top 25 trade partners. The deal secures American access to the Indonesian market, allowing US goods to be sold tariff-free.

Last year, Indonesia shipped $28 billion worth of goods to the US. Higher tariffs are now expected to cut Indonesian exports by a quarter, GDP growth by 0.3%, and many jobs!

Other Southeast Asian lessons?
The Philippines’ Marcos II government is the most pro-US in Southeast (SE) Asia, hosting 11 American military bases.

Yet it was the only one without a US tariff offer before Secretary of State Rubio’s SE Asian visit earlier this month. The Philippines has since been offered a new US trade deal with the same 19% tariff rate despite its loyalty to Washington.

Loyal long-term support for the US, 11 military bases and serving as an additional ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’ just south of Taiwan did not secure a better trade deal for the other archipelagic nation in SE Asia.

Trump wants trade deals even more favourable to the US than existing ones. With deadlines passing, the US is expected to announce more trade deals.

The tariff threats have been more effective for Trump, thanks to decades of trade liberalisation forced on the Global South, undermining earlier import-substituting industrialisation and food security measures.

Washington has already revised earlier demands, sometimes not just once, but typically to the chagrin of US trade partners. Vietnam’s Communist Party leader was initially thought to have negotiated a better deal than other SE Asian governments.

Lessons for others?
Will the US offer to Indonesia become a template for others? Or even for countries of comparable significance in the world economy? Nobody knows Trump’s strategy, let alone how it may still change.

Perhaps it begins with the threat of high tariffs, shock and awe. Then, a less painful deal is offered, dressed up as a concession.

This may be worse than the status quo ante, but it still seems preferable to the original threat. Nations will also be required to buy US goods that may not be needed or offer the best value for money.

Thus, US offers to SE Asia are being studied worldwide for lessons on better negotiating with Washington. Meanwhile, the US refuses to negotiate collectively except with the European Union.

All over the world, policymakers will continue to debate Trump’s tariff war strategy after Monday’s agreement in Scotland, which included a 15% baseline tariff on most EU exports to the US.

The US-EU deal makes clear the West, including Europe, has never really been committed to a rules-based international order, including multilateral trade liberalisation.

As American buyers pay the tariffs, imported goods become more expensive. US trading partners will lose exports, related growth and jobs. This will mean less expansion, employment and exports worldwide, accelerating stagnation.

Meanwhile, most SE Asian governments believe they have little choice but to continue negotiating with the US, which is driving them to others willing to engage them on more favourable, if not fairer, terms.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Wars, economic shocks, planetary heating and aid cuts have worsened food crises in recent years, with almost 300 million people now threatened by starvation.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Clearly, inadequate food due to population growth cannot explain persistent hunger. Yet, the number of hungry people has been rising for more than a decade. So, why are so many hungry if there is more than enough food for all?

The multi-stakeholder 2025 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) notes 2024 was the sixth consecutive year of high and growing acute food insecurity, with 295.3 million people starving!

In 2023, 733 million people experienced chronic hunger. Over a fifth (22.6%) of the 53 countries/territories assessed in this year’s GRFC were especially vulnerable.

Food output in 2024 continued to rise. In 2022, the world produced 11 billion metric tonnes of food, including 9.6 billion tonnes of cereal crops, such as maize, rice and wheat.

Most hungry people are poor. The poverty line is supposed to reflect the poor’s ability to afford basic needs, mainly food. But the discrepancy between poverty and hunger trends implies inconsistent data and definitions.

Nadia Malyanah Azman

Over 700 million worldwide survive on less than $2.15 daily without enough food. Presumably, the 3.4 billion with less than $5.50 daily can barely afford enough nutrition.

New World Bank data estimates 838 million, 10.5% of the world’s population, were in extreme poverty in 2022, 125 million more than previously estimated. It expects one in ten (9.9%) to be in extreme poverty in 2025, with about 750 million hungry.

The extreme poverty line is now $3/day instead of $2.15/day. The poor comprised almost half (48%) the world’s population in 2022. With bleak medium-term growth prospects and inequality still growing, their prospects look especially dismal.

While dietary or caloric energy is essential for human activity, adequate dietary diversity is crucial for human nutrition. Hence, the poor typically cannot afford to eat enough, let alone healthily.

Women and girls are generally more likely to go hungry than men, with hunger rates in women-headed households usually higher. UN-recognized ‘indigenous peoples’ are under 5% of the world’s population but account for 15% of the extreme poor, suffering more hunger than others.

Why food crises?
The multi-stakeholder 2025 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) notes 2024 was the sixth consecutive year of high and growing acute food insecurity, with 295.3 million people starving!

Worsening conflicts, economic crises, deep funding cuts and less humanitarian assistance all threaten food security. As planetary heating worsens, those experiencing acute food insecurity will likely increase again this year.

Food insecurity has worsened in 19 countries/territories, mainly due to internal conflicts, as in Myanmar, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Even before the aid cuts, half the countries/territories featured in GRFC 2025 faced food crises. Despite La Niña rains, droughts in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan are expected to worsen.

USAID and other recent aid cuts have defunded food programmes for over 14 million children in Sudan, Yemen and Haiti alone. G7 countries are expected to cut aid by 28% in 2026 from 2024. Meanwhile, the GRFC 2025 reported humanitarian food assistance “declined by 30 percent in 2023, and again in 2024”!

In 2024, 65.9 million in Asia were food insecure, the worst in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Food crises threatened 33.5 million, or 44% of those in the eight MENA territories assessed in GRFC 2025.

Starvation as weapon
The number of starving people more than doubled in 2024! Over 95% of this increase was in the Gaza Strip or Sudan. Wars destroy and disrupt food production and distribution. A famine was declared in Sudan in December 2024, with more than 24 million starving due to the civil war.

Sudan has the largest land area for farming in Africa. Two-thirds of Sudan’s population relies on agriculture, but the ongoing conflict has caused the destruction and abandonment of much farmland and infrastructure.

Despite the Sudanese military’s devastating factional war, the country remains the world’s largest exporter of oily seeds (groundnuts, safflower, sesame, soybean, and sunflower), reflecting its agronomic potential.

Many more are starving in Haiti, Mali, and South Sudan. The UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) deems such starvation, death, destitution and severe acute malnutrition “catastrophic”.

Food deprivation has become the primary Israeli weapon against the people of Gaza. Gaza’s 2.1 million Palestinians have been at “critical risk” of famine due to the Israeli blockade on food and humanitarian aid since October 2023!

Despite official Israeli denial of mass starvation, growing international outrage, including from some of its staunchest allies, has forced the Netanyahu government to gloss over its actions. In May, it set up the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to “calibrate” calorie rations to continue starvation but not to death.

IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau