WASHINGTON — A US trade agreement reached with Indonesia in July is at risk of collapsing because Jakarta has backtracked on several commitments it made as part of the deal, a US official said on Tuesday.

“They’re reneging on what we agreed to in July,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, giving no details about which specific commitments Indonesia was now questioning.

The two countries in July said Indonesia agreed to eliminate tariffs on more than 99% of US goods and scrap all non-tariff barriers facing American firms, while the US will drop threatened tariffs on Indonesian products to 19% from 32%.

US President Donald Trump first announced the deal on July 15, calling it “a huge win for our Automakers, Tech Companies, Workers, Farmers, Ranchers, and Manufacturers.”

But Indonesian officials have told US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer that Jakarta cannot agree to some binding commitments and wants to reframe them, the official said.

US officials believe that would lead to worse agreements for the United States than recent deals it has struck with two other Southeast Asian countries, Malaysia, and Cambodia, the official said, confirming details first reported earlier on Tuesday by the Financial Times.

The FT reported US officials believe Indonesia is “backsliding” on the elimination of non-tariff barriers on industrial and agricultural exports from the US as well as commitments to take action on digital trade issues.

No comment was immediately available from USTR.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week told a New York Times DealBook event that Indonesia “was getting a little recalcitrant” on its trade deal with the United States, but did not elaborate. Malaysia, by contrast, had proven to be a good actor and had dropped thousands of line tariffs so trade between the US and that country was flowing much better.— Reuters

OSLO — Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is due to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Wednesday, in defiance of a decade-long travel ban imposed by authorities in her home country and after spending more than a year in hiding.

However, her current whereabouts are unknown and it is unclear whether she will be able to attend at all.

When she won the prize in October, Ms. Machado dedicated it in part to US President Donald Trump, who has said he himself deserved the honor.

President Nicolas Maduro, in power since 2013, says Mr. Trump is trying to overthrow him to gain access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves and that Venezuelan citizens and armed forces will resist any such attempt.

FAMILY MEMBER COULD STEP IN
Ms. Machado, 58, is due to receive the award at a ceremony at Oslo City Hall in the presence of King Harald, Queen Sonja, and Latin American leaders including Argentine President Javier Milei and Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa.

The ceremony starts at 1 p.m. (1200 GMT).

Should she not reach Oslo, the ceremony would still go ahead. When a laureate is unable to attend, a close family member usually steps in to receive the prize and deliver the Nobel lecture in place of the laureate.

On Tuesday, Ms. Machado did not appear at a scheduled press conference, with the Norwegian Nobel Institute saying in a statement it was unable to say “when and how she will arrive for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony”.

“I know that she wants to come and that she is en route but that’s all I know,” said Kristian Berg Harpviken, the institute’s director and permanent secretary to the award committee.

“We will make sure that it’s a worthy ceremony that recognizes this year’s laureate, casting a spotlight on the situation in Venezuela and the importance democracy has for peace,” he told public broadcaster NRK.

US MILITARY STRIKES
Ms. Machado has aligned herself with hawks close to Mr. Trump who argue that Mr. Maduro has links to criminal gangs that pose a direct threat to US national security, despite doubts raised by the US intelligence community.

The Trump administration has ordered more than 20 military strikes in recent months against alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and off Latin America’s Pacific coast.

Human rights groups, some Democrats and several Latin American countries have condemned the attacks as unlawful extrajudicial killings of civilians.

Venezuela’s armed forces are planning to mount a guerrilla-style resistance or sow chaos in the event of a US air or ground attack, according to sources with knowledge of the efforts and planning documents seen by Reuters.

PRIZE ‘INTERNATIONAL VALIDATION’ OF ELECTION RESULT
In 2024, Ms. Machado was barred from running in the presidential election despite having won the opposition’s primary by a landslide. She went into hiding in August 2024 after authorities expanded arrests of opposition figures following the disputed vote.

The electoral authority and top court declared Mr. Maduro the winner, but international observers and the opposition say its candidate handily won and the opposition has published ballot box-level tallies as evidence of its victory.

Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, said the Nobel prize had given “a strong signal of international validation … (of) the democratic results that had been forgotten”.

He told Reuters it had also elevated Ms. Machado to “a person that … the international community and the world can hang their hopes on,” he said.

“… Oftentimes democratic movements need a face. They need a story.”— Reuters

THE EUROPEAN Union has reached a legally binding climate agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040 from 1990 levels, involving the purchase of foreign carbon credits to cover 5% of the cuts, the European Parliament said on Wednesday.

The agreement will require EU industries to cut emissions by 85% and, from 2036, EU nations to pay non-member countries to cut emissions on their behalf to make up the remainder.

The European Parliament and EU countries must each approve the target for it to become law – usually a formality that waves through pre-agreed deals.

The agreement goes beyond most other major economies’ emissions-cutting pledges. Still, the target fell short of that recommended by the EU’s climate change science advisers and was weaker than an original goal, reflecting disagreement between EU governments over the speed and cost of their green agenda.

“This agreement shows that climate, competitiveness and independence go hand in hand and sends a powerful message to our global partners. We agreed on a strong but realistic climate law,” spokesperson for EU climate commission Wopke Hoekstra said in a statement.

The target represented a political compromise after months of negotiations in which governments including those of Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary opposed deeper carbon dioxide cuts as too strenuous for domestic industries struggling with high energy costs, cheaper Chinese imports and US tariffs.

Other EU members, including the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden, cited worsening extreme weather events and the need to catch up with China in manufacturing green technology as reasons for the lofty target.

To win over opponents, the EU also agreed to weaken other politically sensitive climate policies, such as by delaying the launch of a carbon price for fuel by one year to 2028.— Reuters

TOKYO/MOSCOW — Japan has scrambled jets to monitor Russian and Chinese air forces conducting joint patrols around the country, the Japanese defense ministry said late Tuesday, amid rising tensions between Tokyo and Beijing.

Two Russian Tu-95 nuclear-capable strategic bombers flew from the Sea of Japan toward the East China Sea to rendezvous with two Chinese H-6 bombers, and performed a “long-distance joint flight” in the Pacific, the ministry said.

Four Chinese J-16 fighter jets joined the bombers as they made a round-trip flight between Japan’s Okinawa and Miyako islands, it added. The Miyako Strait between the two islands is classified as international waters.

Japan also detected simultaneous Russian air force activity in the Sea of Japan, consisting of one early-warning aircraft A-50 and two Su-30 fighters, the ministry said.

Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said in a post on X on Wednesday that the Russian and Chinese joint operations were “clearly intended as a show of force against our nation, which is a serious concern for our national security.”

Japan’s fighter jets “strictly implemented air defense identification measures,” Koizumi added.

Russian news agencies reported that the Russian-Chinese joint flight near Japan lasted for eight hours, citing Moscow’s defense ministry.

South Korea’s military also said on Tuesday that seven Russian planes and two Chinese planes had entered its air defense zone.

Japan said on Sunday that Chinese carrier-launched fighter jets aimed radar at Japanese military aircraft a day earlier, an account Beijing disputed.

Beijing’s rising military actions near Japan follow Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last month that Tokyo could respond to any Chinese military action against Taiwan that also threatened Japan’s security.

China and Russia have been ramping up military cooperation in recent years elsewhere, conducting joint operations such as an anti-missile training on Russian territory and live-fire naval exercises in the South China Sea. — Reuters