Commentary: My aunties now debate Trump’s tariffs on Indonesia. Here’s what they miss

A good tariff deal means little if permits crawl and customs stumble, says a strategic communicator. Advertisement Commentary Commentary: My aunties now debate Trump’s tariffs on Indonesia. Here’s what they miss A good tariff deal means little if permits crawl and customs stumble, says a strategic communicator. If tariff schedules across Southeast Asia converge or become legally uncertain, advantage shifts elsewhere. Sondang Grace Sirait Sondang Grace Sirait 26 Feb 2026 05:59AM Bookmark Bookmark Share WhatsApp Telegram Facebook Twitter Email LinkedIn Set CNA as your preferred source on Google Add CNA as a trusted source to help Google better understand and surface our content in search results. Read a summary of this article on FAST. Get bite-sized news via a newcards interface. Give it a try. Click here to return to FAST Tap here to return to FAST FAST JAKARTA: Indonesian family WhatsApp groups are often a reliable barometer of national mood. So, when my aunties started debating tariff percentages – rather than forwarding TikTok videos about herbal remedies – it was clear that trade policy had gone mainstream.They may not be economists, but they understand the scoreboard. Zero per cent is a win, 19 per cent acceptable, but anything higher a failure. It is intuitive, but also incomplete.Tariffs are not a scoreboard. They are one variable in a much larger equation.Investors rarely fixate on a single percentage point. They assess what that number implies about risk. How long do permits take? Are customs procedures applied consistently? Are rules of origin interpreted the same way across ports? Do regulations change midstream? In practice, a five-point tariff difference can matter less than a six-month licensing delay.