President Prabowo Subianto delivers a speech to mark the launch of a rural cooperative under the Red and White Cooperatives Program (KDMP) in Nganjuk Regency, East Java, on May 16, 2026. (Antara/Presidential Secretariat)
President Prabowo Subianto has downplayed the depreciation of the rupiah with statements economists say may send a dangerous signal to the market, potentially dealing a further blow to the currency.Prabowo, during a visit to Nganjuk in East Java, implied in a speech that the rupiah’s weak exchange rate against the United States dollar had no serious effect on the livelihoods of ordinary people.
“Every so often [some say] that Indonesia will collapse, it will become chaotic, right? The rupiah like this, the dollar like that. People in the villages do not use the dollar, correct? [...] Many countries are in panic; Indonesia is still okay,” Prabowo declared on Saturday.
Whatever the rupiah was worth in dollar terms was only “a headache for the people who go abroad a lot”, he added in a separate speech on the same day, causing laughter in the audience when he pointed to his ex-wife Siti Hediati Hariyadi and several cabinet members as cases in point.
Prabowo himself has made foreign policy a hallmark of his presidency and visited dozens of countries – many several times – since taking office in October 2024.
