Indonesia palm oil group says palm oil exports to US may fall due to tariffs
Palm oil products are among Indonesia's top exports to the United States.
If implemented, the tariff could lead to a 15 per cent-20 per cent drop in Indonesian palm oil shipments to the United States, which stood at an average of 2.25 million metric tons per year over the past three years, Hadi said.
Overall, Indonesia exported 29.5 million tons of palm oil products in 2024.
"The competitiveness of palm oil will decline against other vegetable oils such as soybean oil and rapeseed oil, especially if countries exporting these vegetable oils receive lower tariffs," he added.
Indonesian palm oil products, which account for 85 per cent of U.S. palm imports, may also lose market share to Malaysian palm oil, which faces a lower tariff.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNA
6 hours ago
- CNA
Musk says Tesla, Samsung Electronics sign chip supply deal
SEOUL :Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Monday that the U.S. automaker has signed a deal to source chips from Samsung Electronics, a move expected to bolster the South Korean tech giant's loss-making contract manufacturing business. On Saturday, Samsung announced a $16.5 billion chip supply deal with a major global company, without naming the client. It said the customer had requested confidentiality about the details of the deal, which will run through the end of 2033. Three sources briefed about the matter told Reuters that Tesla was the customer for the deal. The deal comes as Samsung faces mounting pressure in the race to produce artificial intelligence chips, where it trails rivals such as TSMC and SK Hynix. This lag has weighed heavily on its profits and share price. Samsung, the world's top memory chip maker, also makes logic chips designed by customers through its foundry business. Pak Yuak, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities, said the latest deal would help reduce losses at Samsung's foundry business, which he estimated exceeded 5 trillion won ($3.63 billion) in the first half of the year. Analysts say Samsung has struggled with the defection of key clients to TSMC for advanced chips. TSMC counts Apple, Nvidia and Qualcomm among its customers. The Samsung-Tesla deal is also significant for South Korea, which is seeking U.S. partnerships in chips and shipbuilding amid last-ditch efforts to reach a trade deal to eliminate or reduce potential 25 per cent U.S. tariffs. It is not clear how the order would affect Samsung's plan to start production at its new factory in Texas, which has been delayed as it struggles to win major customers. Samsung is grappling to boost production yields of its latest 2-nanometer technology, and the order is unlikely to involve the cutting-edge tech, Lee Min-hee, an analyst at BNK Investment & Securities, said. Samsung has been losing market share to TSMC in contract manufacturing, underscoring technological challenges the firm faces in mastering advanced chip manufacturing to attract clients like Apple and Nvidia, analysts said.
CNA
13 hours ago
- CNA
Euro gains as investors cautiously welcome US-EU trade deal
NEW YORK: Investors cautiously embraced news of a trade deal on Sunday (Jul 27) between the US and European Union that is expected to bring clarity for companies and some certainty to markets ahead of US President Donald Trump's Friday tariffs deadline. The euro rose against the US dollar, up 0.27 percent at US$1.177. The currency also gained 0.2 percent against both the pound and the Japanese yen. Trump announced the United States has struck a framework trade deal with the EU that includes a 15 percent tariff on EU goods entering the US and significant EU purchases of US energy and military equipment. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the deal includes "cars, semiconductors and pharmas." The deal is similar to parts of the framework agreement the US clinched with Japan last week. "It's really in line with the Japan deal, and I assume investors will view it positively as they viewed the Japan deal," said Rick Meckler, partner at Cherry Lane Investments in New Vernon, New Jersey. Optimism over easing trade tensions broadly helped push US stocks to record highs last week and lifted European shares to their highest since early June. Trump's Apr 2 "Liberation Day" announcement of sweeping global tariffs sent stocks plunging in the immediate aftermath, due to spiking fears about a recession that have since faded. "I don't think equities in particular needed much of an excuse to rally and now they've got one," said Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone in London. Still, investors have been bracing for increased volatility heading into Aug 1, which the US has set as a deadline for raising levies on a broad swath of trading partners. "We will need to see how long the sides stick to the deal. From a market perspective, it is reassuring in the sense that having a deal is better than not having a deal," Eric Winograd, chief economist at investment management firm AllianceBernstein, said about the EU agreement.
CNA
14 hours ago
- CNA
US, China to resume tariff talks in effort to extend truce
STOCKHOLM: Senior US and Chinese negotiators meet in Stockholm on Monday (Jul 28) to tackle longstanding economic disputes at the centre of a trade war between the world's top two economies, aiming to extend a truce keeping sharply higher tariffs at bay. China is facing an Aug 12 deadline to reach a durable tariff agreement with President Donald Trump's administration, after Beijing and Washington reached a preliminary deal in June to end weeks of escalating tit-for-tat tariffs. Without an agreement, global supply chains could face renewed turmoil from duties exceeding 100 percent. The Stockholm talks, led by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, come right on the heels of Trump's biggest trade deal yet, with the European Union accepting a 15 percent tariff on its goods exports to the US and agreeing to make significant EU purchases of US energy and military equipment. That deal struck with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday in Scotland also calls for US$600 billion in investments in the US by the EU, Trump told reporters. No similar breakthrough is expected in the US-China talks, but trade analysts said that another 90-day extension of a tariff and export control truce struck in mid-May was likely. An extension of that length would prevent further escalation and help create conditions for a potential meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in late October or early November. Spokespersons for the White House and US Trade Representative's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on a South China Morning Post report quoting unnamed sources as saying the two sides would refrain from introducing new tariffs or take other steps that could escalate the trade war for another 90 days. Trump's administration is poised to impose new sectoral tariffs that will impact China, including on semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, ship-to-shore cranes and other products. "We're very close to a deal with China. We really sort of made a deal with China, but we'll see how that goes," Trump told reporters before his meeting with von der Leyen, providing no further details. DEEPER ISSUES Previous US-China trade talks in Geneva and London in May and June focused on bringing US and Chinese retaliatory tariffs down from triple-digit levels and restoring the flow of rare earth minerals halted by China and Nvidia's H20 AI chips and other goods halted by the United States. So far, the talks have not delved into broader economic issues. They include US complaints that China's state-led, export-driven model is flooding world markets with cheap goods, and Beijing's complaints that US national security export controls on tech goods seek to stunt Chinese growth. "Stockholm will be the first meaningful round of US-China trade talks," said Bo Zhengyuan, Shanghai-based partner at China consultancy firm Plenum. Trump has been successful in pressuring some other trading partners, including Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines, into deals accepting higher US tariffs of 15 percent to 20 percent. Analysts say the US-China negotiations are far more complex and will require more time. China's grip on the global market for rare earth minerals and magnets, used in everything from military hardware to car windshield wiper motors, has proved to be an effective leverage point on US industries. TRUMP-XI MEETING? In the background of the talks is speculation about a possible meeting between Trump and Xi in late October. Trump has said he will decide soon whether to visit China in a landmark trip to address trade and security tensions. A new flare-up of tariffs and export controls would likely derail any plans for a meeting with Xi. "The Stockholm meeting is an opportunity to start laying the groundwork for a Trump visit to China," said Wendy Cutler, vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute. Bessent has already said he wants to work out an extension of the Aug 12 deadline to prevent tariffs snapping back to 145 percent on the US side and 125 percent on the Chinese side. Still, China will likely request a reduction of multi-layered US tariffs totaling 55 percent on most goods and further easing of US high-tech export controls, analysts said. Beijing has argued that such purchases would help reduce the US trade deficit with China, which reached US$295.5 billion in 2024. China is currently facing a 20 percent tariff related to the US fentanyl crisis, a 10 percent reciprocal tariff, and 25 percent duties on most industrial goods imposed during Trump's first term. Bessent has also said he would discuss with He the need for China to rebalance its economy away from exports toward domestic consumer demand. The shift would require China to put an end to a protracted property crisis and boost social safety nets to encourage household spending.
