Cyber Practitioners: Trump Trade Tariff Opens Opportunity for Indonesia to Increase Digital Independence
The latest trade tariff policy implemented by the President of the United States Donald Trump considered as a challenge as well as an opportunity for Indonesia to encourage digital sector independence in the country.
cybersecurity expert from vaccine.com, Alfons Tanujaya, said that although this policy had a direct impact on Indonesia’s real exports to the US, especially in the electronics and technology sectors, there was strategic space that could be utilized.
“America is making big profits from the global digital sector, but we allow ourselves to depend too much on them,” Alfons told Tempo, Monday (7/4/2025).
Trump’s policy: 10% general tariff, 32% for Indonesia
Trump announced a new import duty policy on Wednesday, April 2, 2025, which stipulates Minimum rate 10% for all imported products, with the addition Special Rate 32% for products from Indonesia. Other countries such as China, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea are also affected in certain categories.
Trump claims this reciprocal tariff policy in response to the trade imbalance that has occurred between the US and its partner countries, including Indonesia.
Independent Opportunities in the Digital World
Alfons judged, in the midst of this pressure, Indonesia should not only survive, but also Take progressive steps by strengthening the local digital technology sector.
“Many digital platforms we use, from Google to Netflix, are foreign products. We must be able to create quality domestic alternatives,” said Alfons.
He highlighted the importance of incentives for Local application developer, and Cloud infrastructure Do not rely too much on foreign services such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
Encourage Open Source, Change Official Mindset
Furthermore, Alfons invites the government to be serious in adopting technology Open Source, which is considered more cost-effective and easy to develop independently.
However, he said that this was not enough just with a technical policy—Need a mindset transformation among officials.
“Our officials are still too focused on big spending and expensive projects, not on efficient and sustainable solutions,” he concluded.
