President Jokowi some time ago visited the United States to attend a special United States-Asean Summit (Summit). It is not limited to maintaining multilateral relations, there is a desire for Indonesia to obtain capital to increase the production of domestic needs. The visit has strategic significance from a bilateral, regional and global perspective, and provides real practical benefits for Indonesia. Bilaterally, the United States is Indonesia's third largest trading partner after China and Japan. These figures tend to increase from year to year and are projected to continue to increase in the coming years.

With a population of 250 million and a fast-growing middle class, Indonesia is a country with great potential for American trade and investment. Based on data from the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM), the investment value of the United States this year, until May 2022, was US$65.76 million with a total number of 261 projects. In 2021, investment from the US will touch US$2.5 billion, a significant increase. compared to 2020.

We know that in investment matters, the government cannot invest alone because of budget constraints. Of the total investment needs of nearly IDR 6,000 trillion, the government can only provide IDR 497 trillion. The rest is thrown to state-owned enterprises and the private sector. So the President met with several well-known US companies and investors such as Google, Tesla, Qualcomm, Boeing, Air Products, Chevron, Marriot, and ConocoPhillips, as a strengthening of the strategic aspects of investment.

Several important reasons such as the departure of oil and gas contractors leaving the business commitments that have been made with the government are actually a unique phenomenon, in which the investment is considered economically unattractive. One of them is due to the age of the existing wells that are old (mature) so that natural production has decreased very sharply.

The giant European oil and gas industry has seriously begun to change its vision and mission as an oil and gas company into an energy company to accommodate diversification and transformation towards environmentally friendly energy. Meanwhile, several giants of the US oil and gas industry have begun to be selective in running the oil and gas business. Not to mention that the US government is indeed evaluating their strategic partner countries to place their business capital. Moreover, the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war made the US government very careful.

Since 2016, the Asean Economic Community has united more than 600 million residents of 10 Asean countries into a single market while the US with 320 million people is a large market for Indonesian export products, such as textiles and textile products, rubber, fish, and furniture.

President Jokowi's visit to a number of countries sends a message that Indonesia wants to be good friends with all countries, including countries that seem to be competing with each other. Regionally, the US and Indonesia are partners in efforts to maintain stability in the Asia Pacific.

Currently the region is the engine of world economic growth. The South China Sea, for example, is a route for US$5.3 trillion of global trade, of which US$1.2 trillion is US trade.

Under the administration of President Joe Biden, the Indonesian government must understand that the current US economic philosophy is based on the economic understanding of the Democratic Party, namely the government needs to actively intervene in regulating the economy because the market has failed to overcome various problems such as inflation, unemployment, poverty, international balance of payments deficits. , and others. If left to the market alone, these various economic problems cannot be resolved.

Indonesia needs to review the advantages of products and the ability to produce them in important sectors such as textiles, tourism, agriculture, plantations, fisheries, technology, creative industries, and energy. Indonesia can focus on improving the quality of human resources and incentives for small and medium enterprises to develop entrepreneurial activities and create jobs.

The implementation of policies such as eradicating corruption, legal certainty, and efficiency of the bureaucracy can create and encourage a positive and equitable investment climate for national and international investors and Indonesian workers.

This situation is expected to shift Indonesia's dependence from sources of economic growth, which are mostly supported by the consumptive economy, to a productive economy.

If Indonesia is still a producer of raw materials, it is possible that Indonesia will fall into the trap of middle-income countries and find it difficult to get out to become a fairly developed developing country or a developed country. So it would be useless if the president's success brought huge investments but the runway does not imply that the investment path will go well.