Indonesia’s Joko to meet Obama

“Indonesia is an open economy, and with a population of 250 million, we are the largest economy in Southeast Asia”, Widodo said, speaking from the Oval Office, “Indonesia intends to join the TPP”.

“Indonesia has been an important and strategic country for us for over 75 years and the current government’s vision and more recent plans to accelerate spending on infrastructure have given us the confidence to make this commitment”, said GE’s Vice Chairman John Rice.

The TPP trade deal was signed earlier this month after seven years of negotiations. New analysis finds several days recently where greenhouse gas emissions from Indonesia’s fires surpassed the daily level of emissions of the entire us economy.

The haze crisis, as well as climate change issues more broadly, was on the agenda on Monday when Indonesian Prime Minister Joko Widodo made his first visit to the White House as the world’s most populous Muslim nation’s leader.

They also touched upon maritime security, including tensions in the East Sea (South China Sea).

If Indonesia, a G20 member with about a $1 trillion economy, were to join the trade agreement, it would be a windfall for Washington.

Indonesia has deployed 3 warships, with more on standby, to deliver face masks, tents and medical supplies to thousands of people affected by acrid haze from forest fires, an official said Monday, October 26. His schedule in Washington will go ahead as planned, but he’ll skip a stop in San Francisco and will fly home on Tuesday afternoon. He did not specifically address the prospect of Indonesia joining TPP, but said “other countries who are able and willing to meet its standards, can potentially accede”.

Obama said the two sides discussed the importance of the cooperation within the framework of Asean and East Asian forums in order to cement global law and order regarding maritime navigation.

“And I consider it a crime, not just a disaster, because even though setting fire to land remains perfectly legal in Indonesia, endangering the lives of millions of people, destroying protected forests and their wildlife, and threatening the global environment are criminal acts”.

This year’s efforts to control fires is a band-aid on the longer term issue of stopping fires before they start and restoring peatlands so that they keep their massive stores of carbon sequestered in the ground rather than in the atmosphere.

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