Today, President Biden welcomed President Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia to the White House. The two leaders commemorated 75 years of diplomatic relations built on shared values of democracy, pluralism, and a common commitment to the rules-based international order. As the world's second- and third-largest democracies, the United States and Indonesia share a commitment to addressing evolving challenges and capitalizing on emerging opportunities based on mutual benefit and respect for each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Over the last 75 years, our countries have continued to deepen our partnership, most recently elevating the relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2023.
Since 2002, the United States has provided over $6.8 billion in development, economic, health, and security assistance to support Indonesian development efforts, which includes more than $2.2 billion to jointly advance education and health outcomes and over $1.4 billion to promote economic growth, democratic governance, and human rights, including support to civil society. To continue expanding this cooperation, President Biden and President Subianto announced new initiatives to deliver a better future for our citizens and a free, open, prosperous, secure, and resilient Indo-Pacific.
PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE, RESILIENT ECONOMIC GROWTH
The United States and Indonesia have long been partners in advancing prosperity for our citizens and those across the Indo-Pacific, including through the G20, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity. The United States will continue to partner with Indonesia on activities to promote sustainable urban development, including the deployment of innovative smart city solutions, quality infrastructure, and international best practices to improve the quality of life for city residents in Indonesia. Ongoing technical assistance, pilot projects, and training programs supported by the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), and the U.S. Department of Commerce are designed to mobilize capital, deploy innovative and secure technologies, and foster new public-private partnerships to advance Indonesia's sustainable development goals. As part of the two leaders' commitment to implement our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, President Biden has announced the following programs to promote sustainable economic prosperity.
- Trade and Investment Framework Agreement: The United States and Indonesia are committed to future engagement and cooperation on trade, including agricultural trade, and will explore holding a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement meeting in 2025. The United States looks forward to expanding our robust relationship in agricultural trade that accounted for $7 billion in two-way annual trade in 2023.
- Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF): The United States, Indonesia, and 12 other IPEF partners have broken new ground with this framework that will deliver economic benefits and serve as a regional platform for long-term economic cooperation. The IPEF partners have negotiated three economic cooperation agreements aimed at promoting competitive supply chains, accelerating the transition to cleaner economies, and creating a more predictable playing field for workers and businesses.
- Millennium Challenge Corp (MCC) Indonesia Infrastructure and Finance Compact: The U.S. MCC and the Government of Indonesia launched the $649 million Indonesia Infrastructure and Finance Compact-a five-year grant focused on improving the quantity and quality of infrastructure investments and increasing access to finance for small and medium enterprises, especially those owned by women.
- Promoting Labor Rights: The U.S. Department of State and DOL have provided more than $2 million for programs in Indonesia to foster labor rights and workplace democracy, as well as ensuring occupational health for workers in high-risk industries.
- Digital Infrastructure Smart City Pilot Project: USTDA partnered with Autodesk, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cisco, ESRI, Honeywell, IBM, and Motorola to launch a $7.6 million project. This project will implement innovative smart city technologies to enhance urban management, streamline emergency response, and support sustainable infrastructure.
The Biden-Harris Administration has reiterated its commitment to partnering with Indonesia on tackling the climate crisis and ensuring the United States and Indonesia are at the forefront of harnessing the clean energy transition, as well as reducing deforestation. As co-leads with Japan of the International Partners Group (IPG), the United States has been working with Indonesia to help implement its goals in the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP). We are helping to catalyze $21.6 billion in public ($11.6 billion) and private ($10 billion) sector financing. To date, we have 32 ongoing technical assistance programs funded by the countries in the IPG that total $202.7 million with an additional $831.42 million approved in seven loan and equity investments.
- Supporting Clean Energy Transition Planning: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is supporting a JETP Captive Coal study for site-specific decarbonization of the steel, cement, paper, and aluminum industries, which could lead to $2 billion in investment for clean energy deployments. Furthermore, USAID has assisted Indonesia to accelerate its net zero emission target in the power sector and define policy reforms to achieve its JETP goals.
- Mobilized Finance for Clean Energy: USAID and the U.S. Development Finance Corporation assisted one geothermal and two small hydropower plants obtain $239.5 million in private investment to support Indonesia's commitment to reach net zero emissions in the energy sector by 2060 or earlier.
- Just Energy Workforce Transition: The United States is partnering with Indonesia to develop a jobs data collection methodology to address Indonesian workforce clean energy transition.
- Mobilizing Renewable Energy Mini Grids: USTDA, in a public-private partnership with the DOE's national labs under the Net Zero World Initiative, is supporting mobilization of $6 to $10 million at five sites and will mobilize up to $2 billion in investments to convert 500 MW of diesel to renewable energy hybrid mini grids.
- Exploring Clean Energy Alternatives for Industrial Growth: The United States and Indonesia are partnering on a "Battery2EV" supply chain roadmap that identifies clean energy alternatives to captive coal-powered industrial growth.
- Expanding Access to Climate-Resilient Water and Sanitation: USAID is expanding Indonesian access to climate-resilient water and sanitation in 38 cities and districts. Technical assistance integrates upstream water resource management with downstream urban service delivery.
- Signed Marine Conservation Debt-For-Nature Swap Agreement: In 2024, Indonesia and the United States signed the largest bilateral debt-for-nature swap agreement as part of the Tropical Forest and Coral Conservation Act. The roughly $34 million agreement provides funding to conserve coral reefs across much of Central and Eastern Indonesia.
- Emergency Management Memorandum of Understanding: The United States and Indonesia disaster response agencies signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding that will serve as a framework for future cooperation in disaster preparedness.
The United States is investing in Indonesia's healthy workforce. Access to quality health services in Indonesia, particularly for the poorest and most vulnerable people, remains a challenge. Through USAID, the United States has invested more than $1.1 billion to help Indonesia strengthen its health systems-including $58.9 million last year. These investments include the following:
- Bolstering Health Security: The United States supports Indonesia's effort to prevent and respond to infectious and zoonotic disease outbreaks. USAID helped expand Indonesia's early warning alert and response system in the animal and human health sectors for emerging infectious diseases from two to 38 provinces.
- Tuberculosis Detection: In over 250 hospitals, USAID-supported screening efforts reached more than four million people, resulting in the identification and treatment of 40,000 TB patients. Additionally, USAID supported the establishment of 12 drug-resistant tuberculosis clinics, delivering life-saving treatments to 321 patients.
- Expanding Use of National Electronic Health Platform: USAID helped connect more than 23,500 healthcare facilities in 38 provinces to a national electronic health information platform, improving data access and enhancing health services for patients.
INVESTING IN OUR PEOPLE
President Biden and President Subianto celebrated the health and strength of our people-to-people ties. Over the past year, around 100 Indonesian leaders have traveled to the United States to participate in U.S. Department of State professional exchanges on journalism, economic development, financial systems, civil aviation, and cybersecurity, among other topics. This year, we celebrated 10 years of academic exchange through the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI). In 2024 alone the United States hosted 165 young leaders from Indonesia through YSEALI and other youth exchange programs. Building on this decades-long partnership and recognizing this new era of cooperation under our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, President Biden announced the following new programs to further strengthen these ties:
- Cultural Heritage Preservation: A $275,000 grant will assist several Indonesian museums to develop and digitize a cataloging system enhancing their emergency preparedness capacity. Another $299,800 grant assists with documenting and preserving Indonesian local languages through community engagement and open-source digital platforms.
- Interfaith Dialogue: The United States and Indonesia engaged in interfaith dialogues, including the Cross-Cultural Religious Literacy Conference to strengthen tolerance, promote inclusivity, and encourage interfaith collaboration.
- Increased Access to Higher Education: In 2023, USAID trained over 700 staff members and over 6,000 students from more than 55 Indonesian universities in soft skills development, applied STEM learning. USAID improved access for Indonesian students to U.S. education through a new Indonesia government-funded scholarship program that sent, worth a value of approximately $9.56 million.
- Educational Exchange: Indonesia and the United States plan to expand the Fulbright program to welcome American Fulbright scholars and English Teaching Assistants into educational institutions run by the Ministry of Religious Affairs. The EducationUSA Fall Fair showcased 92 registered U.S. universities and expanded its capacity to provide free information about U.S. higher education to Indonesian students by 25 percent in 2024
- Improving Digital Literacy: USAID's Saring Daring U-Challenge activity, in partnership with Meta and Love Frankie, has improved the ability of 288 university students to create and disseminate content on digital literacy issues, and increased engagement among 120,000 students and enhanced digital literacy awareness among an additional 240,000 students. USAID is also partnering with AWS to train 50,000 university students in market-driven cloud computing skills.
- Partnering on Resilient Semiconductor: Purdue University has formed a strategic partnership with Indonesia's National Semiconductor Ecosystem Development Task Force to enhance Indonesia's supply chain resilience in critical and emerging semiconductor technologies, leveraging Purdue University's expertise as a leading research university.
- Promoting Democratic Governance and Human Rights: The Biden-Harris Administration has invested over $50 million through Department of State and USAID in initiatives that strengthen democratic governance, promote respect for fundamental freedoms and human rights, and bolster the role of civil society in Indonesia. The United States and Indonesia have also reaffirmed their steadfast support for the Open Government Partnership as a way to enhance transparency, accountability and public participation, deliver for the public, and advance anti-corruption priorities.
DEEPENING REGIONAL AND GLOBAL COOPERATION
The United States and Indonesia are united by a shared commitment to ASEAN centrality and the common principles articulated in the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo Pacific (AOIP) and the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy. In 2022, Presidents Biden and Jokowi upgraded ASEAN-U.S. relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in recognition of the breadth and depth of U.S. cooperation with ASEAN across a wide range of important issues in ASEAN's political-security, economic, and socio-cultural community pillars. In 2023, Indonesia as ASEAN chair spearheaded the ASEAN-U.S. Statement on Cooperation on the AOIP to affirm the fundamental principles shared between the AOIP and the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy and enhance ASEAN-U.S. coordinated action across the AOIP's four areas of cooperation. The Biden-Harris Administration advanced our collective security through:
- Expansion of Super Garuda Shield: Super Garuda Shield has expanded from being the cornerstone for the U.S.-Indonesia military relationship to include troops from Australia, Canada, France, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, Republic of Korea, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, and this year included a cyber exercise for the first time. It involves more than 4,000 service members from 23 nations observing - or training side-by-side - in one of the largest multinational exercises in the Indo-Pacific region.
- Expanding Military-to-Military Relationship: The United States and Indonesian militaries conduct over 200 different types of military engagement each year. Additionally, the International Military Education and Training program with Indonesia represents the largest U.S. training education program in the USINDOPACOM area.
