CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Trump Promised Erdogan the F-35, But the Law Says No

A pair of F-35s in flight. Photo: 1st Lt. Erik D. Anthony, US Air Force.

Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan met Donald Trump at the airport in Ankara, which heads of state generally do not do. There were cannons. There were soldiers on horseback. Jets flew overhead trailing red, white, and blue smoke. Then the two men sat down at the presidential palace in Ankara and Trump, asked about the sanctions his own administration imposed on Turkey, said this: “We don’t want to sanction friends.”

The sanctions came down in December 2020, from Trump’s own White House, on Trump’s own watch, after Turkey bought a Russian air defense system built to hunt the exact American stealth fighter Ankara wanted to buy. Nothing about the S-400 has changed since. What changed is that Erdogan sent horses to the airport.

Trump went further. Turkey, he said, has been more loyal than other U.S. allies. He said this on a trip where he singled out Britain, France, Germany, and Italy for insufficient enthusiasm about his war on Iran, complained that the alliance had not treated him well, and declined to rule out withdrawing more American troops from Europe.

Loyalty, in this formulation, has nothing to do with treaties, democracy or shared interest. It means Erdogan was nice to him.

On the F-35 itself, Trump was slipperier. A sale was “certainly something we will consider.” By the conclusion of the Ankara NATO summit, he had backed up further, saying he hadn’t made up his mind but was........

© CounterPunch