Sesi Dialog Presiden RI “A Meeting of Minds” pada Forbes Global CEO Conference 2025

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Forbes Media (Steve Forbes)
Thank you very much, Mr. President, for joining us this evening. It is a, it turns out to be a good time to speak with you. On Monday, you celebrate the first anniversary of your inauguration as President of Indonesia, and on Friday, this Friday you celebrate a birthday. And, since I’m older than you, I can mention that because you look young to me. But, your background is quite amazing.

First of all, your education, for a variety of reasons you ended up in a variety of schools, what we call grade school and senior high school in various countries, including Switzerland, but with British orientation and American orientation. Walk us through your background in terms of your education.

Presiden Republik Indonesia (Prabowo Subianto)
Yes, well, I think. I followed my father of course, my family, at that time. Basically, my father was an exile actually, so he was opponent of President Sukarno. So, when President Sukarno was in power, my father for political reasons and then we left the country and we followed. And, so wherever my father had to go we went and then that is why basically every two years we moved to a new country. Finally, ending up in the United Kingdom. In 1968, I returned back to Indonesia. At that time, there was a political change, President Sukarno was replaced by President Suharto. My father was called back by President Suharto to serve in President Sukarot’s government and I returned back to Indonesia in 1968. 

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Forbes Media (Steve Forbes)
You also, by the way, are the president with a sense of humor. Tell us about how you went to Harvard. 

Presiden Republik Indonesia (Prabowo Subianto)
Oh, no. I know that  the anglo-saxon community, you know, they are very impressed by Oxford, Cambridge, for those, you know, the British etc commonwealth people very impressed hearing the words Oxford and Cambridge. For the American orient oriented people are very impressed by Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Cornell. So, I understood that. So, one day I was at a reception, it was the Queen’s birthday in Jakarta. I was there with one of my deputies. I was chairman of the party, he was a deputy chairman, but he graduated from the London School of Economics. So, in the reception, all the young British diplomats surrounded him and didn’t address me at all, right. So, why? I keep hearing, you know, Oh, Excellency, you graduated from LSC London, you know. So, my deputy was saying yes. And, so then I, you know, wanted some attention so I broke in. I said, actually, I went to Oxford, you know. And they all changed my attention to me, they surrounded me. Which college did you go to? No, no, no, actually I went to the bookstore in Oxford. But, this works every time. It works every time. 

Just now, I think, a few minutes ago, Ted Osious, Ted there with William, right? And, apparently both of them will graduate from Harvard, right? So they were very proud of it. So, they mention it, we are Harvard graduates from the same class 1984, he said. So, I don’t want to lose out, you know. So, I said no, I also went to Harvard. So, Ted said, which college did you go to? No, no, I went to the bookstore in Harvard. I got him, I got him. It works every time. 

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Forbes Media (Steve Forbes)
Well, you come from a very distinguished family, your grandfather was a founder of a very notable bank, and your father was a brilliant economist who served Sukarno and Suharto, but also was not afraid to try to make a change when he thought one was needed. So, growing up, your father helped shape your philosophy, so getting your family background. How did they shape your economic thinking? 

Presiden Republik Indonesia (Prabowo Subianto)
I think you are correct, because you know, my grandfather lived in the times of Indonesia being colony of Holland, of the Netherlands. My father went to school in the Netherlands and graduated there in economics. So, this was the 40s, right. And then, of course we were in the middle of this great, let us say upheaval fighting for our Independence. My father came back and at that time to be very frank most of the leaders of Asia-Africa, the leaders, the elite were basically socialists. Because at that time socialism, in fact even marxism, communism, they were the movement that really advocated for freedom against the colonialist and the imperialist. I think that’s why a lot of Asian-African Leaders movements of the young were practically left-wing, many were communists and my father was also a socialist in his young days. In fact, he was the leader of the socialist party of Indonesia. But then, I think what was influenced him a lot was when he was sent by our leaders to New York to the United Nations to represent Indonesia, lobby for Indonesia. And, there he made friendships with a lot of American leaders who basically were business leaders, who were capitalist. But, many American capitalists in those days and leaders were also anti-imperialist and anti-colonialism. They were against all these colonial and imperialist movements, and America at the time was in the forefront of actually, basically forcing the European colonial powers to decolonize. So, I think this, my father got and he was helped a lot by many American business leaders. He always talked a lot about Matthew B. Fox, at that time, I think the founder of 20th Century Fox, I think, who became a good friend of my father and always helped the Indonesian Independence movement. So, it’s very interesting. 

So, when he came back from the US, the early days of independence, he became quite I would say even balanced. He, of course, the thinking was always socialistic but he understood that actually capitalism [and] free enterprise really had something, that’s very important. Then,  that was his thinking in the end. Of course, I was a young boy, I said, “So, Father, what is the best economic system according to you, Father?” And he said, “Actually, the best economic system for us, for Indonesia, must be a mixed economic system. It must be, we must take the best of capitalism and the best of socialism. And I think this is now, I think it’s going to be the mainstream thinking. For instance, this is the same thinking, I think, as the third way of Tony Balair, the middle way. So, I don’t think in the 20th, 21st century world we can opt for one set of thinking, one set of philosophy that works for everybody. It must be, I think we need to find each country, the system that works for our country. That’s my opinion. 

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Forbes Media (Steve Forbes)
One of the things in terms of getting down to specifics that you’ve done in your first year is a program where you’re spending billions of dollars to provide school lunches for children, and that walks us through what you learn from the Rockefeller Institute and others, and how important it is for a meal for children to learn. But also, what is this already starting to do to the local agricultural community, talk about the kitchen that is being set up and already it’s beginning to have an impact. I’ll steal some of his thunder right now he is feeding each day the equivalent population of seven Singapores. So, walk us through the program. 

Presiden Republik Indonesia (Prabowo Subianto)
I think this free meal program, in Indonesia we call it MBG-Makan Bergizi Gratis, so free nutritious meal. Well, basically, it came about, you know, I have been campaigning, I’ve been running for president, I think. I ran for president. I think five times in the last 25 years. Five times I ran, four times I lost, the last time I won. What I’m trying to say is during this campaign, these five campaigns, I traveled to many areas, to many villages and every time I come to the village, I see young children greeting me. They come and stand, and they wave. So, I talked to them and I asked them, “What’s your age?” And, I was, many times, surprised. When I thought that the little boy in front of me must be only four years old because of his body, he replied that he was 10 years old. The little girl, who I thought must be only five years old, said she is 11 years old, and it went on. So, I was shocked. So I saw directly and physically, I saw stunting, I saw malnutrition. I saw poverty in my eyes. And, it is very difficult for people who live in the elite to understand that children sometimes can eat only rice with salt. 

So, that got me thinking, then I remembered the schools in Europe and the UK, the US, they had free meals for lunch. So, I said and then I read about Brazil, I saw the importance of doing something and then I realized that India, their per capita income is less than Indonesia and yet their leaders had the courage to have a free meal program for the children. So, I said to my team. I said, if India can do it, why cannot Indonesia? And, India I think has done it since 2010. And, they have put it into their laws that the free meal is mandatory for their children. Brazil does this. So, when I started running for this, It was in 2023, I think. At that time, there were 77 countries that had free meal programs. So, I said Indonesia must be there, 78th or 79th. 

So, we started planning and I announced it as my campaign program and we designed it and now I’m proud to say as of a few hours ago, we have now 11.400 kitchens, I think. Sorry, 11.900 kitchens. So, we are feeding today 35,4 million mouths and that is the equivalent of seven Singapores. So, we are feeding seven Singapores everyday. And I think yes, we have glitches. I think we had food poisoning, but when we counted the number of meals we gave out, the number of food poisonings I think the statistic is as low as 0,0007, which I think is not, I mean, even one poisoning is not acceptable. But I think in any human endeavor to have zero defect or zero accident or zero mistake, I think is very rare in human endeavour, in my opinion. I don’t make excuses. We are determined to make it as near to zero as possible. We increased our oversight SOPs. We are now buying new equipment, filters for the water, test kits for the food, modern equipment to heat the water, to heat the trays that are being. So, we are putting it, trying to increase all the oversight. 

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Forbes Media (Steve Forbes)
Now with these meals, walk us through what it’s already doing to the farming community. 

Presiden Republik Indonesia (Prabowo Subianto)
Yes, what we find out, you see, because now we send the money straight to the kitchen. We don’t go through all these layers, layers of bureaucracy. We are straight. Before the whole program, we have trained 32,000 managers. These are all graduates from university, 32.000. We’ve trained them for three months and then they deployed into the villages, and then we have partnership with local foundations, local groups, and local entrepreneurs. So, this is a government, government-private let us say partnership because the the foundations, the local groups, some entrepreneurs, they are the ones who built the kitchens and run the kitchen according to our specifications in our SOPs. So, one kitchen is designed to provide food between 3.000 to 3.500, 3.800 children and pregnant mothers. So, what happens is, one kitchen will need 3.000 eggs every two days or every three days, will need 3.000 cucumbers, 3.000 carrots, 3.000 tomatoes, 3.000 pieces of chicken, etc. What happens is, the local farmers find out we have a guaranteed offtake for our products and they are growing new stuff. We hear a lot of stories and a lot of testimonies, you know, they are building fish ponds and those in coastal areas, they increase their fish production. So, it’s very exciting. 

What I got a report and this is from the Rockefeller Institute, I got a visit from a delegation from the Rockefeller Institute led by Mr. Roy. I think it’s Roy Cohn, and they said to me, in their experience going through many countries in the world with the same program. They said that every $1 spent in the free meal program, the return on the $1 is between 5 to $37. This is massive, you know. It really encourages me, because my first purpose is to overcome the hunger of the children. That is my first purpose, but in this sense that we put in so much resources to the villages and the poor areas of Indonesia, even the urban areas, even Jakarta has a lot of undernourished children. And this, I think this is providing a big boost to the economy, in my opinion. That is the feedback I get. 

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Forbes Media (Steve Forbes)

You have done programs to increase agricultural output, but also for 17.000 islands. You also now amazingly have a program to improve fishing, the refrigerators and the like. Walk us through how. 

Presiden Republik Indonesia (Prabowo Subianto)
Yes, I think Indonesia is basically we are actually very blessed and very fortunate, that three quarters of Indonesia is actually sea. But, the sad thing is we have not really exploited this blessing well. So basically, in the 80 years of Indonesian history, there have been no real effective programs to empower our fishing communities, basically. And, this is what we’re trying to do, my Minister of Fisheries, he started a pilot project, one model, we make as a model of this. We call this project the Fishing Village Project, Desa Nelayan. So, our village consists of 2.000 villages. We will reorganize, give facilities. For instance, many of these villages do not have a simple jetty. So, we built a jetty for them. They don’t even have ice. So, we provide financing so that they can build them a small ice producing facility. So, every day, they go to the sea, they will have ice blocks, And so when they catch the fish, the fish will be fresh coming back. So it’s simple things like that. Cold storage. When their produce can be stored and then electricity solar panels. So, all these things: clinics for them, good schools for the children. And, we find out their testimony after one and a half years, two years, their earnings increase up to 100 per cent which is amazing, you know. I am, myself was very, very surprised. I thought, maybe 40, 50, [but] 100 per cent increase for basic things like ice. And then, of course, facilities for auctioning the fish. So, now all the people who need fish, they know. “Oh, in that village I can get fresh fish, and if I come early for the auction I’ll get the best. So, prices increase, earnings increase.” 

So, what we are planning to do is we are planning to replicate that this year, 2026. This year we already start building 65 already, and the target will be the end of 2026. We are going to build at least one thousand of these villages all over Indonesia, one thousand that means at least it will empower two million fishermen with their wife and maybe two kids. It is eight million Indonesians immediately, I mean, after one year, the earnings will increase by 100 per cent and this is our goal, our dream, and I’m very bullish, I am very optimistic. So, we will now get a fresh increase of protein from the fishing villages. We will send it to our cooperatives because I am also building, we have already established 81.000 village cooperatives. And, each village cooperative will have their own warehouse, cold storage, will have their own mini supermarket, their own village drugstore, village clinic, etc. Each cooperative will be given financing to buy two trucks. So, all their produce will be sent to the market and there’ll be no more stories of ‘Sir, our harvest is rotting. Nobody’s coming’. Yeah, so I think this is going to be, I think, an exciting time for Indonesia. I am excited, because I’m seeing this dream, this concept turning into reality as we sit here today. 

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Forbes Media (Steve Forbes)
And one of the things you’ve done was to wipe out old debts for a lot of small farmers and businesses that were around for years and years, were not going to be paid. So, just wipe it out and let them have a fresh start.

Presiden Republik Indonesia (Prabowo Subianto)
Yes, I think at that time when I came in, even before I came in, you know, in, in my campaign, a lot of these representatives on the farmers and from the little small business came to me, “Sir, we can’t get any new loans because our debt of 25 years ago is still in the books of the banks. So, I called some of the bankers, we discussed and basically I understood that actually in the banks after 25 years, most of these banks have been written off already in the books of the banks. So, of course, there are the conservative bankers who said, “No, Sir! We cannot, you know, what example will be given for the other borrowers.” So, I said these people in 25 years cannot pay because of bad weather, because of natural disasters, etc. No way, they can pay back. So, to be realistic, I said there is such a thing like forgiveness. So, we forgive the debt. 

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Forbes Media (Steve Forbes)
Now, one of the things in our macro economic sense you’re doing is a free trade agreements and you have an agreement with the EU, the European Union to promote trade. Can you walk us through that?

Presiden Republik Indonesia (Prabowo Subianto)
Yes, I think this is a, I think one of the achievements of my team, my economics team, led by Mr. Airlangga Hartarto. He has been working very hard with his team, and yeah we succeeded in getting the agreement through the CEPA, the Indonesian-European Union Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, CEPA. I think this is a breakthrough because it came right when the American agreement started the tariff campaign. Can we say campaign?

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Forbes Media (Steve Forbes)
It is a polite way to put it.  I’m an American, I have more pungent words. You have to be diplomatic.

Presiden Republik Indonesia (Prabowo Subianto) 
So, I think we need to, for us it was a wake-up call, right? I mean, if I were an American, I [would] understand the point of view of the Trump administration. I think, I mean America cannot be, I mean the whole world considers America to be a nice market and then on the other way around, they don’t also open their market to American goods. So, there will always be, I mean, it’s the duty of the leader to try to protect their people. But I mean, if you are going to tariff war, where will it stop, right? 

But for us, it is a wake up call. So I said, I told my guys, my team, and I would talk to the business people. We must be more efficient. We must be more daring. We must be more, not always rely on an easy market. Oh, United States, United States. I think this is opening up, but yes, and then that’s why now we have a CEPA with the EU. We also, I went to the signing of CEPA with Canada and I think we are more and more trying to get these types of agreements with most markets, also with Latin America, with I think RCEP and CPTPP, etc. So, we also are joining the OECD. We requested to join, we have joined BRICS. So, we believe that we should, you know, be in all the markets that we can. But, basically more important is actually the Indonesian market, we are nearly 300 million people. So, we must actually boost our capacity, our buying power. That is way, I want to really empower the poor of Indonesia that will create domestic consumption. 

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Forbes Media (Steve Forbes)
When you campaigned, you gave your desire to increase the growth rate from five percent a year to eight percent a year. What other steps are you taking? What industries do you see coming in the future to Indonesia? And what would you say to Americans and others about why they should invest in Indonesia today, so you can get that eight percent growth rate? 

Presiden Republik Indonesia (Prabowo Subianto)
I think eight percent is very achievable. It is very achievable as I mentioned to you, for instance, even with this free meal program we are creating directly 1.5 million jobs directly. And each that there is 30,000 kitchens times 50 people working in the kitchen, two or three shifts. So, 50 people times 30.000, that is 1,5 million. So, the economic expert tell me that one percent growth will create 400 000 jobs. Well, we have already created 1,5 million jobs, that is three percent. And that is not even with the 81.000 cooperatives there. We calculate, we will also create at least another 15 jobs. But, the beauty of the whole thing is each kitchen has created 15 local entrepreneurs: One selling their eggs, the other one selling vegetables, the other one selling fish, this one selling meat, the other one. So, each one of these 15 vendors or suppliers will have at least five, 10 or 15 workers. 

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Forbes Media (Steve Forbes)
So far, investors will be witnessing a growing economy which attracts capital. 

Presiden Republik Indonesia (Prabowo Subianto)
I think so, a growing economy and if these people have money, what do they do? They will buy shoes, clothes. They want to improve their housing, they want each to buy maybe a motorcycle, television. So, I think this is the way I mean, of course, the big guys will want to go to the big things, right? For instance, we have a lot of minerals, a lot of critical minerals. We are number one, I think, in nickel. Maybe number four or five in boxite. We are in critical minerals, I mean. So, I think there’s a lot of space for new investment. We need more exploration for oil and gas. We need more drilling. We find out, I think, 30-40.000 old wells that with new technology we can increase our yield. 

So I think there’s a lot of room for investment. And, I think Indonesia must be something that will attract a lot of interest to come in, because I think not many economies, I think in the present world, enjoy even now we are growing at five percent a year. I mean, many other countries are not even growing at all, you know one percent-two percent even. I just came from Sharm El-Sheikh and met all the leaders. They were, we are exchanging notes and many countries are struggling with energy and all that. I think we are blessed with so many resources, but of course I’m not satisfied we have to manage our resources better. 

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Forbes Media (Steve Forbes)
One of the couple things you’re doing one is improving tax collection and the other is you maybe looking at tax cuts to help stimulate the economy. And, another thing you’re doing is you have created a sovereign wealth fund, Danantara, which has under assets starting off $1 trillion and not only includes your major banks, but it includes Pertamina, but also amazingly you have 1.000 state-owned businesses that now you’re going to rationalize, reduce, because together they’re only returning one percent on assets. So, if you rationalize these things free up capital for better use, not alone will give a boost to the economy. 

Presiden Republik Indonesia (Prabowo Subianto) 
I think so. So,I have given direction to the chairman of the Danantara to rationalize everything, cut down from the 1.000 state-owned enterprises, maybe to a more rational figure, maybe 200 or 230 or 240, and then run them with international standards, right? So, I am convinced that one or two percent return can increase, must increase. I told the Danantara management to run it on international business standards. You can look for the best brains, best talents. As I have changed the regulation now expatriates, non-Indonesians, can be leading our SOEs. So, I’m very excited. 

But, because you know sometimes, I don’t know, there is some sort of disconnect sometimes between the economic players and the political players, the political leaders. Many political leaders, I think, do not  want to do their homework. Many political leaders maybe are afraid of figures or afraid of business. So, I think now behooves all the younger leaders of Indonesia who want to be political leaders, you must understand business and economics. I think I heard somewhere it was under Clinton’s campaign, somewhere that he put in his campaign room. What?

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Forbes Media (Steve Forbes)
“It’s the economy, stupid. “

Presiden Republik Indonesia (Prabowo Subianto)
“It’s the economy, stupid.” I don’t know how to translate it into Indonesian. Yeah but it’s the economy, stupid. If you don’t understand the economy, you can be fooled by the economists. You must never be intimidated by the so-called experts. I am talking to my younger guys, right?

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Forbes Media (Steve Forbes)
One of the things you’ve been very open about is battling corruption. When you were Defense Minister, you made it a point that any relative, if the name was on came in for a contract, they would not get the contract. Relate the story first of a company that came in that made you an offer, they thought you couldn’t refuse, but you did. And then walk us through quickly the things you are doing now to combat corruption, not just prosecutions but making sure you have the personnel properly salaried, so there’s no excuse for payoffs. First, relate the story about what happened to a particular defense company or a potential provider to get a contract which is rather brazen. 

Presiden Republik Indonesia (Prabowo Subianto)
Yeah, yeah, I mean corruption is, this is very difficult. Corruption in my opinion is a disease, once it reaches stadium four like cancer, it is very difficult. But corruption, in my reading of history, corruption will destroy countries, nations, and regimes. So, I am determined to try to cut down corruption. And, sometimes the only thing is you must give an example, right? So, yes when I became minister of defense, the first night I became minister of defense, I remember I called in all my relatives, my nephews. I don’t know if my brother was in the room but I said, “Listen, I am the minister of defense. Yeah, well, you guys cannot go into the Ministry of Defense for any defense contract, right? Understand? So, that’s what I tried to do. But of course after three months, you know business people are very creative, especially Indonesian business people. So, they will find ways and means. One day, I found one of my nephews coming to me with a project. I said, “Come on, you’ve never been in defense. You don’t understand defense, okay? So no, you look for other business.” 

So, one time we had a defense project conference in the Ministry of Defense. So, my head of logistics reported to me, “Sir, we have these 250 projects and let me report to you project number one, three companies in the shortlist: Company A, company B, company 3. By the way, I would like to report the company C that one of your nephews.” “Write him off! Go down the list.” “Oh, by the way, in this project there is your other nephew.” “Write him off!” I wrote off all my family and so in the comment maybe I reported the names and then they might have passed. So, I had difficulty meeting my nephews for a few months after that. But yeah, you have to give an example. It’s not easy, but you have to do it. 

And then, now the problem for Indonesia I think is this. If we can get this done well, I think very fast we will be the surprise of the world. For instance, I came to two islands of Indonesia: Bangka and Belitung. And, we got the report there were 1.000 illegal tin mines. One thousand illegal tin mines on these two islands and we were losing maybe 80 percent of our total tin production through these illegal miners and to smuggling. And I said, this has to stop. I made a military training program with naval ships, airplanes, helicopters, drones, and we just blocked these two islands. No vessel can come in and out without us knowing what’s inside. And, basically, we stop the smuggling.  One sampan tried to go out, we found out they had tins on the sampan. Can you imagine? So, and then confiscated several cases of  tins, ingots, rare earth, etc. We calculated that we saved our country about a couple of billion dollars. So, next year the increase of tin production will come back to its original position. We should be earning maybe at least three or times of what we were earning last year. So, this is just one example of what we recovered. 

We also of course, I took over from the previous government, handed me over the problem of about, I was reported to come to us, “Sir, out of the millions of hectares of palm oil, about 5.000 are in violation of the law.” “What?” “Yes.” No, no, not five thousand, five million hectares are in violation of the law. So, I said I am sworn in to uphold the law. So, I told my attorney general, my state auditing board, “Carry out investigations, what you find out. If there is a case, terminate their concessions.” And, that is what we did. I think by as of this month we have recovered about 3,7 million hectares of plantation that violated the law. Two plantations, one was 50.000, the other 50.000 violated the law 18 years ago. There was a Supreme Court decision confiscating those two estates 18 years ago. The Supreme Court Indonesia decision, not carried out for 18 years, the attorney general came to me and said. What? Supreme Court? Inkracht. No more ways to appeal. So, I said, “Carry out! Execute!” “Sir, this and that and that.” “What, you guys afraid?” I ordered my armed forces, you accompany this attorney general’s office, accompany the state auditors, protect them, go in there and confiscate. One hundred thousand we take over and no problem.

So, I think this is the case the government now must enforce the law and I am determined to enforce the law. And, I am determined that the Indonesian government must be respected by everybody. The law is the law. Regulations are regulations, those who violate the law will have to deal with the law. That is as simple as that. What I mean is we are recovering a lot of assets, recovering a lot of assets by efficiency. 

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Forbes Media (Steve Forbes)
Whether it is on the village level, enforcing the law, fighting corruption, dealing with the tax code, there have been a lot of protests as you know, in your country and in other countries. People worry about the rise, the cost of living, inequality, but you seem to have embarked on a path where you’re going to have a vibrant economy, but you are going to make sure, as the phrase goes. not only is no one going to be left behind, but they’re going to be very much part of moving forward whether it is in a village or in Jakarta. And, before we let you go, though, one other thing since we have you here which you don’t answer the question you were recently in Egypt invited by President Trump to witness the historic agreement. Can you share before you go, observations about what you saw and what you think, maybe unfolding which also underscores Indonesia’s traditional foreign policy of trying to stay out of the elephants who get in fights with each other? The great powers that you will focus on growth rather than international disputes. But tell us, give us some quick observations about what you saw in Egypt. By the way, the present went to Egypt at midnight on Sunday night, was it? A few hours later you came back amazing. Give us some observations about what you saw. 

Presiden Republik Indonesia (Prabowo Subianto)
It was very interesting, I think. There was a sense that we are at the historic opportunity, a lot must be done. There’s still a long way, anything can happen. But as we feel at this time, there is hope. 

So, in New York during the United Nations General Assembly, President Trump called about eight of us. Eight let us say, leading moslem countries, Indonesia considered Moslem majority so we were invited and he gave his plan. We looked at the plan, and we discussed it. It gave us hope. And then, some of the other Arab leaders say, we can live with the plan. We like it, it gives us hope. But, what about Israel, right? And, so he said, basically what he says is, “I will convince the Israelis.” And, apparently he managed to do that. We have now ceasefire. Aid is coming in. Hostages have been released, some dead bodies are to be recovered. 

So yes there is, I would say still hope that we can get this through and Indonesia is still willing to be part of that. If they need peacekeeping troops, we said we are willing to provide peacekeeping troops. So, I am myself,  I am optimistic. I hope that this can go through.

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief Forbes Media (Steve Forbes)
Well, in your speech in the UN, you gave a very courageous speech about if Israel would recognize Palestine, countries should recognize Israel even if they are moslems. And some criticized you for that but that exemplifies though the kind of firm leadership, forward leadership that the world needs. 

So, we’ve run out of time unfortunately, but I think people are getting a sense that whether it’s issues like ice for fishermen or trying to bring peace to a troubled region, Indonesia has a very strong leader. Thank goodness. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Presiden Republik Indonesia (Prabowo Subianto)
Thank you for having me.

 

Sumber: BPMI Setpres