The Paradox of Trade Surplus and Feed Dependency: Re-Evaluating Indonesia’s Position Through Unequal Exchange

This study aims to analyze the challenges hindering the independence of Indonesia's national livestock industry amidst the country's ambition to achieve developed nation status by 2045. Employing a comparative literature review method, this research synthesizes Indonesia's domestic fiscal strategies with the latest global inequality data found in the World Inequality Report 2026. The findings reveal a structural tension: on one hand, Indonesia records a trade surplus and prioritizes food security through strategic programs such as food estates (lumbung pangan) and the "Free Nutritious Meal" initiative. On the other hand, the asymmetric global financial structure places developing nations at a disadvantage through the mechanism of "unequal exchange." Wealthy nations enjoy an "exorbitant privilege" that allows them to borrow cheaply and dominate productive assets, while developing nations face high liability costs. This analysis concludes that without global structural reforms and aggressive domestic downstreaming (hilirisasi), the dependency on imported livestock feed raw materials will continue to function as a channel for wealth transfer from Indonesia to developed nations, thereby impeding the capital accumulation necessary for economic transformation