The $100K KITAS and Other Hot Takes From the Trump–Prabowo Bromance... 😲
Trump praises Prabowo at the UN. What follows is a descent into military optics, expat fears, budget blowouts, and the $100K KITAS nobody asked for.
It was barely a blip in global headlines: Donald Trump, in his trademark off-the-cuff style, told Indonesia’s president Prabowo Subianto, “Great speech, great job” after the latter’s UN debut. A harmless throwaway? Maybe... if it weren’t 2025, and if Prabowo weren’t an ex-general with a track record that makes Amnesty International staffers twitch. In today’s hyper-connected, policy-by-press-release era, a two-second soundbite from Trump ricochets. Within hours, Indonesian state media latched on like it was a papal blessing, with .go.id pages lit up like it was Merdeka Day.
This was a ceremonial knighting. And in Jakarta, it played exactly how you’d expect: with a mix of bureaucratic euphoria and widespread civilian unease. To the average expat scrolling Twitter from a Bluebird, the question wasn’t “What happens next?” but “Is the Golden Visa about to come with a tank?”
Because Trump doesn’t compliment lightly. He admires power, bluntness, and men who don’t ask permission. That’s the kind of energy Prabowo is increasingly channeling. The handshake might’ve been brief, but the implications now have Jakarta whispering about the beginning of a new, swagger-heavy chapter.
Strongmen of the World, Unite!
Let’s not pretend this isn’t a political Marvel crossover that no one pitched and everyone’s forced to watch. In one corner, Prabowo Subianto, Indonesia’s new president, ex-general, and walking throwback to an era where civil liberties were optional. In the other, Donald Trump, the man whose foreign policy strategy once included hugging a flag and threatening Denmark. Alone, each has enough chest-thumping theatrics to make a dictator blush. Together, they create an atmosphere where press freedom checks its own pulse.
Prabowo didn’t stumble into power. He marched in on a platform built from national nostalgia, free lunches, and khaki-flavored patriotism. His cabinet increasingly resembles a reunion of the class of ‘98, except everyone now has a ministry. He’s militarized food distribution, dabbled in geopolitics via Gaza peacekeeping offers, and hinted that the best form of governance might just be “do it my way and salute.”
Then there’s Trump, who greeted Prabowo’s UNGA speech with an approving nod that echoed louder than it should have. A simple “great job” might seem innocuous. But in the Trump playbook, praise is rarely casual. It’s an endorsement of style, not substance. Trump doesn’t admire speeches; he admires bravado.
The synergy here isn’t about ideology. It’s about aesthetics. Uniforms, authority, simplicity. Neither man seems overly fond of checks and balances, and both understand the political value of appearing strong. Even if policy has to be dragged behind the curtain and quietly buried.
So yes, when these two nod at each other in public, it might look like statesmanship. But to many watching from Jakarta to D.C., it feels like a dress rehearsal for the world’s most authoritarian buddy cop reboot.
$100K KITAS? Don’t Laugh. (Okay, Laugh a Little.)
This is where the expats start sweating slightly. The Trump–Prabowo handshake felt like the start of something unholy. A vibe shift. A signal that the bureaucratic roulette wheel might start spinning a little faster, a little more chaotically, and maybe with a few extra zeros attached.
The $100K KITAS doesn’t exist. Not today. But in a climate where optics matter more than operations and where military-run food programs are sold with a straight face, it’s not crazy to wonder if policy might start echoing the boldness of the branding. If you can float 20,000 peacekeepers to the UN, what’s a casual fee hike for foreigners looking to stay?
Indonesia already has its Golden Visa program. It’s perfect for those who want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on residency and the privilege of still needing to explain to immigration officers why you’re renewing in Denpasar instead of Jakarta. But that’s supposed to be the high-tier, big-money lane. The KITAS is meant to be functional, boring, mildly painful in that character-building way.
Enter our imagined dystopia. A $100K KITAS bundled with meaningless perks, like a souvenir photo with a cardboard Prabowo or a “defense-themed welcome kit” that includes a branded mess tin and commemorative rice. Absurd? Sure. Impossible? Let’s not tempt fate.
The real fear isn’t the price tag. It’s the thinking behind it. That in a Prabowo–Trump era, governance becomes a pay-to-play spectacle where foreign professionals and retirees get caught between revenue-hungry ministries and a political culture that increasingly values loyalty over logic.
Laugh now. But keep your receipts. Just in case someone decides KITAS renewal requires a contribution to national defense. Or a parade.
Meals for the Masses, Missiles for the Budget
Let’s leave personality politics aside for a moment and talk about policy. Because while everyone was distracted by handshakes in New York and official .go.id pages breathlessly celebrating Trump’s verbal thumbs-up, something a little more important was happening back home: the 2026 budget.
It’s big. It’s messy. And it’s making accountants sweat in places you didn’t know accountants could sweat.
The headline promise is classic populism with a Prabowo twist: free meals for all schoolchildren. An ambitious idea. Nourish the youth, raise productivity, win hearts. But critics say the program launched without proper food safety checks, infrastructure, or procurement plans. And like many things launched with military precision, it’s arriving late and over budget.
Simultaneously, the defense budget is swelling. More money for hardware, procurement, joint training, and uniforms. A lot of uniforms. With soldiers already managing food logistics and agriculture programs, this is less a civil-military partnership and more a quiet rearrangement of who actually runs things.
And overseeing all this is no longer Sri Mulyani. She was the former finance minister, known for being the one person in the room brave enough to say, “We can’t afford that.” Her departure felt less like a reshuffle and more like an evacuation. In her place: a finance chief seemingly handpicked for compliance with the president’s vision of growth via national-scale lunchboxes and battalion-backed bean counting.
When Trump says “great job” to this, it’s a kind of economic gaslighting. A signal that budgets don’t need balance, just boldness. And as military trucks line up next to school canteens and fiscal strategy gets replaced by volume, you have to wonder: is this still development, or just the prelude to debt-fueled cosplay?
Democracy? Never Heard of Her
Now let’s address the uncomfortable third party lingering in the Trump–Prabowo tango: democracy. Not the aspirational kind printed in textbooks, but the actual living, breathing system that’s supposed to keep egos in check and power accountable. That one.
Under normal circumstances, Trump’s offhanded flattery would be harmless theater. But these are not normal circumstances, and this is not a normal bromance. In Southeast Asia, where leaders keep one eye on the ballot box and the other on how many medals they can pin to their chest without tipping over, symbolism travels fast. A compliment from Trump is a seal of approval for a particular brand of governance. The kind that prioritizes decisiveness over deliberation, uniforms over uniforms-with-oversight.
Indonesia is already halfway there.
A supermajority coalition that acts more like a cheering squad.
A judiciary that has occasionally flexed independence, but often feels politely captured.
A population that is increasingly tired of “transparency” efforts that look suspiciously like slide deck presentations with no action.
When you wrap all that in a ribbon of nationalist nostalgia, democracy starts to feel like a side quest, not the main storyline.
No, we are not saying fascism is coming next Tuesday. But the stage lighting is being adjusted. The script is being tweaked. And if the audience claps too long for the strongman monologue, the curtain may not rise on Act Two.
In this environment, the cost of pushing back rises, while the cost of compliance becomes a line item in the national budget. Criticism turns into a liability. Bribes become best practice. And as for you, the expat? You’re not the target. You’re just collateral logistics. Your only punishment is the rising cost of permission to exist.
Enjoy the parade. Don’t speak too loudly. And yes, the $100K KITAS booth is now open.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Indonesia is still a democracy. It’s chaotic, gossipy, and full of bureaucratic paper trails. Institutions haven’t collapsed. Civil society hasn’t gone quiet. The press still grumbles, even if the tone’s gotten a bit more cautious lately.
But even in this noisy democracy, symbols matter. A compliment from Trump, recycled into a national PR campaign, was a signal broadcast internally and externally. A quiet whisper to the political class that the currency of strength might just be charisma, not competence. That big promises and military aesthetics might now be worth more than policy detail or institutional reform.
It sets the tone. It shifts expectations. It nudges the narrative closer to something less accountable and more theatrical. Where programs are measured in soundbites, budgets in boldness, and criticism in decibels.
And in this kind of climate, you start to see policy drift into parody.
Ex-generals running food programs.
Defense ministers overseeing nutrition.
Foreigners priced out of residency under the guise of “national contributions.”
The $100K KITAS joke stops being funny when it starts to feel plausible.
So laugh, but not too hard. The parade is real. And the confetti’s starting to look expensive.