WASHINGTON: They came from across America, summoned by President Donald Trump to march on Washington in support of his false claim that the November election was stolen and to stop the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden as the victor.
“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Trump tweeted a week before Christmas. “Be there, will be wild!”
The insurrectionist mob that showed up at the president’s behest and stormed the US Capitol was overwhelmingly made up of longtime Trump supporters, including Republican Party officials, GOP political donors, far-right militants, white supremacists, and adherents of the QAnon myth that the government is secretly controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophile cannibals. Records show that some were heavily armed and included convicted criminals, such as a Florida man recently released from prison for attempted murder.
The Associated Press reviewed social media posts, voter registrations, court files and other public records for more than 120 people either facing criminal charges related to the Jan. 6 unrest or who, going maskless amid the pandemic, were later identified through photographs and videos taken during the melee.
The evidence gives lie to claims by right-wing pundits and Republican officials such as Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., that the violence was perpetrated by left-wing antifa thugs rather than supporters of the president.
“If the reports are true,” Gaetz said on the House floor just hours after the attack, “some of the people who breached the Capitol today were not Trump supporters. They were masquerading as Trump supporters and, in fact, were members of the violent terrorist group antifa.”
Steven D’Antuono, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office, told reporters that investigators had seen “no indication” antifa activists were disguised as Trump supporters in Wednesday’s riot.
The AP found that many of the rioters had taken to social media after the November election to retweet and parrot false claims by Trump that the vote had been stolen in a vast international conspiracy. Several had openly threatened violence against Democrats and Republicans they considered insufficiently loyal to the president. During the riot, some livestreamed and posted photos of themselves at the Capitol. Afterwards, many bragged about what they had done.
As the mob smashed through doors and windows to invade the Capitol, a loud chant went up calling for the hanging of Vice President Mike Pence, the recent target of a Trump Twitter tirade for not subverting the Constitution and overturning the legitimate vote tally. Outside, a wooden scaffold had been erected on the National Mall, a rope noose dangling at the ready.
So far, at least 90 people have been arrested on charges ranging from misdemeanor curfew violations to felonies related to assaults on police officers, possessing illegal weapons and making death threats against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi D-Calif.
Among them was Lonnie Leroy Coffman, 70, an Alabama grandfather who drove to Washington to attend Trump’s “Save America Rally” in a red GMC Sierra pickup packed with an M4 assault rifle, multiple loaded magazines, three handguns and 11 Mason jars filled with homemade napalm, according to court filings.
The truck was found during a security sweep involving explosives-sniffing dogs after two pipe bombs were found and disarmed Wednesday near the national headquarters of the Republican and Democratic parties. Coffman was arrested that evening when he returned to the truck carrying a 9mm Smith & Wesson handgun and a .22-caliber derringer pistol in his pockets. Federal officials said Coffman is not suspected of planting the pipe bombs, though he was charged with having Molotov cocktails in the bed of his truck.
His grandson, Brandon Coffman, told the AP on Friday his grandfather was a Republican who had expressed admiration for Trump at holiday gatherings. He said he had no idea why Coffman would show up in the nation’s capital armed for civil war.
Also facing federal charges is Cleveland Gover Meredith Jr., a Georgia man who in the wake of the election had protested outside the home of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, whom Trump had publicly blamed for his loss in the state. Meredith drove to Washington last week for the “Save America” rally but arrived late because of a problem with the lights on his trailer, according to court filings that include expletive-laden texts.
“Headed to DC with a (s— -) ton of 5.56 armor-piercing ammo,” he texted friends and relatives on Jan. 6, adding a purple devil emoji, according to court filings. The following day, he texted to the group: “Thinking about heading over to Pelosi (C— — ‘s) speech and putting a bullet in her noggin on Live TV.” He once again added a purple devil emoji, and wrote he might hit her with his truck instead. “I’m gonna run that (C— -) Pelosi over while she chews on her gums. … Dead (B— — ) Walking. I predict that within 12 days, many in our country will die.”
Meredith, who is white, then texted a photo of himself in blackface. “I’m gonna walk around DC FKG with people by yelling ‘Allahu ak Bar’ randomly.”
A participant in the text exchange provided screenshots to the FBI, who tracked Meredith to a Holiday Inn a short walk from the Capitol. They found a compact Tavor X95 assault rifle, a 9mm Glock 19 handgun and about 100 rounds of ammunition, according to court filings. The agents also seized a stash of THC edibles and a vial of injectable testosterone.
Meredith is charged with transmitting a threat, as well as felony counts for possession of firearms and ammunition.
Michael Thomas Curzio was arrested in relation to the riots less than two years after he was released from a Florida prison in 2019 after serving an eight-year sentence for attempted murder. Court records from Florida show that he shot the boyfriend of his former girlfriend in a fight at her home.
Federal law enforcement officials vowed Friday to bring additional charges against those who carried out the attack on the Capitol, launching a nationwide manhunt for dozens of suspects identified from photographic evidence
The FBI has opened a murder probe into the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher, according to law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation publicly. He died at a hospital.
The Trump supporters who died in the riot were Kevin D. Greeson, 55, of Athens, Alabama; Benjamin Philips, 50, of Ringtown, Pennsylvania; Ashli Babbitt, 35, of San Diego; and Rosanne Boyland, 34, Kennesaw, Georgia.
Boyland’s sister told the AP on Friday she was an adherent of the QAnon conspiracy theory that holds Trump is America’s savior. Her Facebook page featured photos and videos praising Trump and promoting fantasies, including one theory that a shadowy group was using the coronavirus to steal elections. Boyland’s final post on Twitter — a retweet of a post by White House social media director Dan Scavino — was a picture of thousands of people surrounding the Washington Monument on Wednesday.
“She would text me some things, and I would be like, ‘Let me fact-check that.’ And I’d sit there and I’d be like, ‘Well, I don’t think that’s actually right,’” Lonna Cave, Boyland’s sister, said. “We got in fights about it, arguments.”
The AP’s review found that QAnon beliefs were common among those who heeded Trump’s call to come to Washington.
Doug Jensen, 41, who was arrested by the FBI on Friday in Des Moines, Iowa, after returning home from the riot. An AP photographer captured images of him confronting Capitol Police officers outside of the Senate chamber on Wednesday.
Jensen was wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with a large Q and the phrase “Trust The Plan,” a reference to QAnon. Video posted online during the storming of the Capitol also appears to show Jensen, who is white, pursuing a Black police officer up an interior flight of stairs as a mob of people trails several steps behind. At several points, the officer says “get back,” but to no avail.
Jensen’s older brother, William Routh, told the AP on Saturday that Jensen believed that the person posting as Q was either Trump or someone very close to the president.
“I feel like he had a lot of influence from the Internet that confused or obscured his views on certain things,” said Routh, of Clarksville, Arkansas, who described himself as a Republican Trump supporter. “When I talked to him, he thought that maybe this was Trump telling him what to do.”
Jensen’s employer, Forrest & Associate Masonry in Des Moines, announced Friday that he had been fired.
Tara Coleman, a 40-year-old mother who lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was arrested at the Capitol for a curfew violation and for unlawful entry. On her Facebook page, Coleman re-posted articles supporting the QAnon beliefs about a “deep state” conspiracy to target children. The AP could not find a working phone number for Coleman and her attorney, Peter Cooper, did not respond to an email seeking comment.
And Jake Chansley, who calls himself the “QAnon Shaman” and has long been a fixture at Trump rallies, surrendered to the FBI field office in Phoenix on Saturday. News photos show him at the riot shirtless, with his face painted and wearing a fur hat with horns, carrying a US flag attached to a wooden pole topped with a spear.
Chansley’s unusual headwear is visible in a Nov. 7 AP photo at a rally of Trump supporters protesting election results outside of the Maricopa County election center in Phoenix. In that photo, Chansley, who also has gone by the last name Angeli, held a sign that read, “HOLD THE LINE PATRIOTS GOD WINS.” He also expressed his support for the president in an interview with the AP that day.
The FBI identified Chansley by his distinctive tattoos, which include bricks circling his biceps in an apparent reference to Trump’s border wall. Chansley didn’t respond last week to messages seeking comment to one of his social media accounts.
The insurrectionist mob also included members of the neofascist group known as the Proud Boys, whom Trump urged to “stand back and stand by” when asked to condemn them by a moderator during a presidential debate in September.
Nicholas R. Ochs, 34, was arrested Saturday after returning home to Hawaii, where he is the founder of the local Proud Boys chapter. On Wednesday, Ochs posted a photo of himself on Twitter inside the Capitol, grinning broadly and smoking a cigarette. According to court filings, the FBI matched photos of Ochs taken during the riot to photos taken when Ochs campaigned unsuccessfully last year as the Republican nominee for a seat in the Hawaii statehouse.
Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio was arrested Monday in Washington on weapons charges and ordered to stay out of the nation’s capital. Tarrio is accused of vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church last month.
Jay Robert Thaxton, 46, was arrested near the Capitol for curfew violations on Wednesday. A North Carolina man with the same name has also been linked to the Proud Boys. He told The Stanly News & Press in 2019 that he was a Proud Boys supporter but wouldn’t say if he was an official member of the group. Another North Carolina newspaper, The Jacksonville Daily News, published a photo of Thaxton wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat at a 2019 protest over the removal of Confederate statues.
A man who answered a telephone number associated with Thaxton hung up on an AP reporter. The recipient of a text message to the same number responded with an expletive.
Also arrested at the Capitol was William Arthur Leary, who owns a manufactured housing business in Utica, New York. In an interview Friday, Leary told the AP that he strongly believes the election was stolen from Trump and that he went to Washington to show his support.
Leary said he doesn’t trust information reported by the mainstream media and that one of his main sources of information was Infowars, the far-right conspiracy site run by Alex Jones. He denied he ever set foot in the Capitol and complained that he was held for more than 24 hours and had his cell phone seized.
“They treated us like animals,” he complained. “They took all our phones. I didn’t get to make a phone call to tell anybody where I was.”
Leary said he remembers seeing a woman, Kristina Malimon, 28, sobbing at the detention center because she had been separated and not allowed to translate for her mother, who primarily speaks Russian. Both women had been charged with curfew violation and unlawful entry. According to a video posted on her Instagram account, the younger Malimon says she was born in Moldova, where her family had faced persecution under the Soviet-era regime for their Christian beliefs.
Malimon, who traveled to D.C. from Portland, Oregon, is vice chairwoman of the Young Republicans of Oregon, according to the group’s website and is also listed as an “ambassador” for the pro-Trump group Turning Point USA. Her social media feeds are full of photos taken at Trump events, including the earlier “Million MAGA March” held in Washington last month. She also posted photos of herself posing with Donald Trump Jr. and Roger Stone, who was convicted of crimes including obstruction of justice and pardoned by Trump on Christmas Eve.
Media reports from Oregon quoted Malimon in August as the primary organizer of a Trump boat parade on the Willamette River, where big waves created by speeding boats flying Trump flags swamped and sank a smaller boat that was not participating, throwing a family into the water to be rescued by the sheriff’s department.
“Oregon, today you came out and showed your love and support for our wonderful President, Donald J. Trump thank you!” Kristina Malimon wrote on Facebook following the parade.
Malimon also served as a Republican poll watcher in Georgia and spoke at an event organized by the Trump campaign in December, claiming to have seen voting machines and tabulation computers in Savannah, Georgia, with suspiciously blinking green lights she interpreted as a sign they were being secretly controlled by outside hackers — a claim debunked as false by GOP election officials in the state.
A phone number listed for Kristina Malimon rang without being answered on Friday. At the address listed for her in southeast Portland on Friday night, her teenage brother answered the door as other family members, including young children, ran around.
The family spoke Russian to each other and the brother, Nick Malimon, translated. He said his sister was still in Washington but had called the family following her release from jail and didn’t seem upset about her arrest.
But others are facing consequences even beyond their arrests.
A Texas sheriff announced Thursday that he had reported one of his lieutenants to the FBI after she posted photos of herself on social media with a crowd outside the Capitol. Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said Lt. Roxanne Mathai, a 46-year-old jailer, had the right to attend the rally but he’s investigating whether she may have broken the law.
One of the posts Mathai shared was a photo that appeared to be taken Wednesday from among the mass of Trump supporters outside the Capitol, “Not gonna lie......aside from my kids, this was, indeed, the best day of my life. And it’s not over yet.”
A lawyer for Mathai, a mother and longtime San Antonio resident, said she attended the Trump rally but never entered the Capitol.
Attorney Hector Cortes said Mathai’s contract bars her from speaking directly with the press but that she welcomes an FBI investigation and that her actions were squarely within the bounds of the First Amendment.
Brad Rukstales, a Republican political donor and CEO of Cogensia, a Chicago-based data analytics firm, was arrested with a group of a half-dozen Trump supporters who clashed with officers Wednesday inside the Capitol. Campaign finance reports show Rukstales contributed more than $25,000 to Trump’s campaign and other GOP committees during to 2020 election cycle.
He told a local CBS news channel last week that he had entered the Capitol and apologized. He was fired Friday and did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment.
Derrick Evans, a Republican recently sworn in as a delegate to the West Virginia House, resigned Saturday following his arrest on two charges related to the Capitol riot. He had streamed video of himself charging into the building with the mob.
“They’re making an announcement now saying if Pence betrays us you better get your mind right because we’re storming the building,” Evans, 35, says in the video, as the door to the Capitol building is smashed and rioters rush through. “The door is cracked! … We’re in, we’re in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!”
On Saturday he issued a statement saying he regretted taking part.
“I take full responsibility for my actions, and deeply regret any hurt, pain or embarrassment I may have caused my family, friends, constituents and fellow West Virginians,” the statement said.
Records show fervent Trump fans fueled US Capitol takeover
https://arab.news/4nch8
Records show fervent Trump fans fueled US Capitol takeover
- AP reviewed social media posts and public records for more than 120 people either facing criminal charges related to the Jan. 6 unrest
- Evidence gives lie to claims by Trump apologists that the violence was perpetrated by left-wing antifa thugs, not Trump supporters
Israel eyes deeper economic ties with India, finalizing investment protection deal
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and the ministry’s chief economist Shmuel Abramzon discussed the issue, which it did not elaborate on, and other economic matters with Indian Ambassador to Israel J.P. Singh.
“Deepening economic ties with India is one of the goals I have set,” Smotrich said after the meeting in Jerusalem, calling India a “true friend of Israel.” An investment protection agreement is a treaty in which countries aim to reduce the perceived risk of investing in each other, such as by offering protections against unfair treatment or removing restrictions on transferring capital and profits.
India, the ministry noted, has become in recent years one of Israel’s most important trade partners globally and especially in Asia, and the volume of trade and investments between the two countries is expected to increase sharply in the coming years in light of their strengthening diplomatic and security relations.
Bilateral trade between India and Israel in 2024 came to almost $4 billion.
“In recent years, we have witnessed a strengthening of economic ties between us, including in the fields of defense exports and infrastructure,” Smotrich said.
“The potential for further strengthening our economic cooperation is immense. It can leverage our shared technological capabilities, India’s demographic scale, and the geo-strategic position of both countries.”
The EU presidency says Europe must rearm within 5 years
- Russia has been accused of acts of sabotage, cyberattacks and fake news campaigns – largely to weaken European support for Ukraine
BRUSSELS: Russia could pose a credible security threat to the European Union by the end of the decade and defense industries in Europe and Ukraine must be ramped up within five years in preparation, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned on Tuesday.
In a speech to the European Parliament marking the launch of Denmark’s six-month term as holder of the EU presidency, Frederiksen lamented that “cutting our defense spending in the past 30 years was a huge mistake.”
European officials have warned that President Vladimir Putin could soon try to test NATO’s Article 5 security guarantee — the pledge that an attack on any one ally would be met with a collective response from all 32. Most of the allies are EU countries.
Russia has been accused of acts of sabotage, cyberattacks and fake news campaigns – largely to weaken European support for Ukraine – and while Europe is not at war, it is not at peace either, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has said.
“Strengthening Europe’s defense industry is an absolute top priority, and we have to be able to defend ourselves by 2030 at the latest,” Frederiksen told EU lawmakers in Strasbourg, France. “Never, ever should we allow Europe to be put in a position again where we cannot defend ourselves.”
Many European leaders insist they have heard the Trump administration’s warning that American security priorities now lie elsewhere – in the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific – but Europe’s effort to arm is moving only slowly.
When NATO’s ambitions are not enough
At a key summit last month, NATO leaders endorsed a statement saying: “Allies commit to invest 5% of GDP annually on core defense requirements as well as defense- and security-related spending by 2035 to ensure our individual and collective obligations.”
That historic pledge will require them to spend tens of billions of euros (dollars) more over the coming decade, not five years. Spain – NATO’s lowest spender with 1.28% of GDP last year – quickly branded the target “unreasonable.”
Belgium has cast doubt over whether it will make the grade. Slovenia is considering a referendum. Heavyweights France and Italy are mired in economic woes and will struggle to get there too.
Money spent on military support to Ukraine can now be included in NATO’s defense calculations, but even that will not hike the GDP military spend by much.
The EU’s Readiness 2030 plan
With the threat of Russian aggression in mind, the EU’s executive branch has come up with a security plan. It hinges on a 150-billion-euro ($176 billion) loan program that member countries, Ukraine and outsiders like Britain could dip into.
It aims to fill gaps that the U.S. might leave. Spending priorities for joint purchase include air and missile defense systems, artillery, ammunition, drones, equipment for use in cyber and electronic warfare, and “strategic enablers” like air-to-air refueling and transport.
On Tuesday, 15 EU countries were permitted to take advantage of another measure — a “national escape clause” — to allow them to spend more on defense without breaking the bloc’s debt rules.
Beefing up Ukraine ’s defense industry is also a pillar. The country produces arms and ammunition faster and more cheaply than its EU partners. Kyiv estimates that 40% more of its industrial capacity could be exploited if Europe were to invest.
Still, ambition is one thing, and the reality another.
“Things are not moving fast enough to be able to defend ourselves in 5 years,” Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen told reporters last week. “It’s a huge, huge challenge to reach that goal.”
On the need to take risks
A big part of the problem is that governments and the defense industry are stuck in old ways of thinking and neither wants to take a risk, even with Europe’s biggest land war in many decades still raging in its fourth year.
“You cannot expect industry to invest in production capacity if you don’t have long-term orders,” said Joachim Finkielman, the director of Danish Defense and Security Industries.
“If you need to build new factories, if you need to engage a larger workforce, you need to make sure that you have that,” he told The Associated Press on Friday.
Demand for 155mm artillery shells is a typical example, Finkielman said. “When you see the kinds of orders that have been placed around Europe, it is two to three years out in time,” he said, while industry needs five to 10 years’ worth of orders to take a chance.
Finkielman said that if governments and industries in Britain, France, Germany and Italy start to move, “the rest will follow.”
King Charles hosts Macron in first European state visit since Brexit
- Charles is expected to emphasize “the multitude of complex threats” both countries face when he speaks at the castle later
- Macron posted on X on his arrival that “there is so much we can build together”
LONDON: King Charles welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron to Britain on Tuesday for the first state visit by a European leader since Brexit, their warm greeting symbolising the return of closer ties between the two countries.
Macron, treated to a British state visit for the first time, enjoys a strong personal relationship with the king, and there were smiles as the pair met alongside their wives Brigitte and Queen Camilla, watched over by soldiers on horseback, in ceremonial uniform of blue tunics and scarlet plumes.
Charles is expected to emphasize “the multitude of complex threats” both countries face when he speaks at the castle later, while Macron posted on X on his arrival that “there is so much we can build together.”
Accompanied by heir to the throne Prince William, and his wife Princess Catherine, the group climbed into several horse-drawn carriages for a procession in Windsor which finished in the medieval castle’s courtyard, west of London.
Since the election of Prime Minister Keir Starmer last year, Britain has been trying to reset ties with European allies, and Charles will want to play his part in setting the tone of the visit before the political talks get underway.
“Our two nations share not only values, but also the tireless determination to act on them in the world,” the 76-year-old monarch, who is still undergoing treatment for cancer, will say later.
While Macron’s three-day trip is filled with meetings about economic issues and foreign affairs, the first day of the state visit, which comes 16 years after the late Queen Elizabeth hosted then French president Nicolas Sarkozy, is largely focused on pageantry, and heavy in symbolism.
Before heading to London on Tuesday afternoon to address parliament, Macron joined Charles to inspect the Guard of Honour. He was due to have lunch with the family and tour the Royal Collection, paintings and furniture amassed by the Windsors over the centuries.
The monarch’s right eye was noticeably red when he met Macron. A Buckingham Palace source said he had suffered a burst blood vessel in one eye which was unrelated to any other health condition.
The day will end with a state dinner back at Windsor Castle, including speeches by Charles and Macron in front of about 150 guests.
“It’s wonderful that we’re going down the path of welcoming European leaders once again,” Alastair King, the Lord Mayor of the City of London, who will host a banquet in Macron’s honor on Wednesday, told Reuters.
Migrants deal
Later in his trip, Macron and Starmer’s discussions will focus on a range of issues, including how to stop people-smuggling and improve economic and defense ties at a time when the United States is retrenching from its traditional role as a defender of European security.
Although there have been tensions over the shape of post-Brexit ties and how to stop asylum seekers from crossing the Channel in small boats, Britain and France have been working closely together to create a planned military force to support Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire with Russia.
British officials are hoping that Macron will agree to a pilot of an asylum seekers’ returns deal. This would involve Britain deporting one asylum seeker to France in exchange for another with a legitimate case to be in Britain, thereby disrupting the business model of people-smuggling gangs.
A record number of asylum seekers have arrived in Britain on small boats from France in the first six months of this year. Starmer, trailing behind Nigel Farage’s insurgent, right-wing Reform UK party in the polls, is under pressure to come up with a solution.
France has previously refused to sign up to such an agreement, saying Britain should negotiate an arrangement with all the EU countries.
A million more Afghans could be sent back from Iran, Red Cross warns
- Over 1.2 million people have been returned to Afghanistan from Iran since the start of this year
- Aid groups worry that the new arrivals from Iran risks further destabilizing the country
GENEVA: The Red Cross said on Tuesday it is bracing for another 1 million people to be sent back from Iran to Afghanistan amid mass deportations that humanitarians say are placing a heavy strain on the aid system. Over 1.2 million people have been returned to Afghanistan from Iran since the start of this year, according to data from the UN refugee agency, with the number of returns surging since Iran and Israel launched strikes on each other last month.
Sami Fakhouri, Head of Delegation for Afghanistan at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said he witnessed busloads of people returning to a border crossing at the Islam Qala border in Herat province in recent days.
“(We) are anticipating that an additional one million people, possibly more, may return from Iran to Afghanistan by the end of this year,” he told reporters at a Geneva press briefing, voicing concern about their futures with many having left their home country years ago and were now homeless.
“The majority didn’t have a say in coming back. They were put on buses and driven to the border,” he said.
Afghanistan is already battling a humanitarian crisis and aid groups worry that the new arrivals from Iran – on top of hundreds of thousands pressured to return from Pakistan – risks further destabilizing the country.
Fakhouri said the IFRC appeal for 25 million Swiss francs ($31.40 million) to help returning Afghans at the border and in transit camps is only 10 percent funded, voicing concerns about whether it could maintain support for people.
Babar Baloch, a spokesperson at the UN refugee agency, said tens of thousands were arriving from Iran daily with over 50,000 crossing on July 4.
He also voiced concerns about family separations.
“The psychological scars are going to stay with Afghans who have been made to come back to the country in this way,” he said at the same press briefing.
Southeast Asia to step up US trade talks over Trump’s new tariffs
- Indonesian government ‘very optimistic’ about upcoming negotiations
- Thai minister vows to ‘fight to the very end’ for best possible deal
JAKARTA: Officials in Southeast Asian countries prepared on Tuesday to step up trade negotiations with Washington after President Donald Trump’s administration hit some of them with over 30 percent tariffs, despite a raft of new concessions and offers to boost investment in the US.
Trump sent letters on Monday to over a dozen nations, notifying them of new tariff rates set to begin on Aug. 1. About half were heavily export-reliant Southeast Asian economies.
In Indonesia, the region’s largest economy, Trump’s announcement came despite last week’s offer to increase imports of US wheat, soybean, cotton, corn and energy products in a deal that could go as high as $34 billion, and to boost investment in the US.
Jakarta has immediately sent Airlangga Hartarto, its top negotiator and senior economics minister, to Washington to hold talks with US officials.
“We have a team of negotiators ready in Washington, D.C., and our coordinating minister for economic affairs is on his way to D.C.,” Hasan Nasbi, head of the presidential communications office, told reporters in Jakarta on Tuesday afternoon.
“With the date extended to Aug. 1, it means we have a few weeks’ opportunity to negotiate, and our government is very optimistic about these negotiations as we have good relations with all countries, including the US.”
Trump said in a Truth Social post on Sunday that countries “aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an additional 10% Tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy.”
The post followed Sunday’s summit of BRICS — a geopolitical forum that includes Russia, China, India, and Indonesia — which condemned Trump’s tariffs.
The US is Indonesia’s second-largest export market after China, with exports valued at around $26.3 billion in 2024, according to data from Indonesia’s Central Statistics Agency. Last year, Indonesia ran a $16.8 billion goods trade surplus with the US.
Also, Thailand is facing a tariff rate of 36 percent, despite offering to cut levies to zero on many US imports last week.
“The United States has not yet considered our latest proposal,” Thai Finance Minister Pichai Chunhavajira wrote on X.
“We will not stop; we will keep fighting. We will seek additional measures and find more solutions to ensure that we all fight to the very end, to secure the best possible deal for Thailand.”
In 2024, Thailand’s shipments to the US accounted for 18.3 percent of its total and were worth about $54.96 billion last year, making the US the country’s biggest export market.
Malaysia, for whom the US is the second-largest trading partner after China, and the largest export destination — with total trade worth $71.4 billion in 2024 — faces a 25 percent tariff rate.
Its Trade Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz said the country “remains committed to constructive engagement” with the US.
“While we understand concerns regarding trade imbalances, we believe that dialogue and engagement are the best approach,” he wrote on X.
“(Malaysia’s Trade Ministry) will continue discussions with U.S. counterparts to address unresolved issues. Our goal is to achieve a balanced, mutually beneficial, and comprehensive trade agreement.”
