Trump’s Favorite Foreign Partner? The Rise of the Trump–Erdoğan Alliance

Donald Trump has pretty testy relationships with other world leaders, with fallouts and blowups with traditional allies a pretty regular feature of his tenure, particularly in his second term, but one person who can seemingly do no wrong in Trump’s eyes is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In the past week, it’s been reported that the Trump administration is pushing ahead with more than $700 million worth of jet engine sales to the Turkish military, and he expressed optimism about bringing Turkey back into the US’s F-35 fighter jet program, which would represent a big win for Erdoğan. Similarly, Trump told reporters that he’s only going to this month’s NATO summit because Erdoğan is hosting it. Considering that there are many potential tensions in the US-Turkey relationship, from ongoing democratic backsliding to Erdoğan’s vociferous criticism of Israel and support of Hamas, Trump’s affinity for Erdoğan is pretty eyebrow-raising. 

When Trump was asked about this and the possibility of Turkey being brought back into the F-35 program, Trump said, “I’m going to probably do something that will make Erdogan very happy.” For context, back in Trump’s first term in 2019, the US imposed sanctions on Turkey and removed the country from the US’s F-35 fighter jet program as mandated by an act of Congress in response to Turkey’s acquisition of the Russian S-400 air defense system. This has remained a sore point in US-Turkey relations as it’s frustrated Turkey’s efforts to modernize its air force. So, any move by Trump to bring Turkey back into the fold would be warmly welcomed by Erdogan. Meanwhile, it was good news for Turkey last month when a US judge signed off on a deal struck by the Trump administration that ended the US Justice Department’s prosecution of Turkey’s state-owned Halk Bank, which had been charged in 2019 with helping Iran evade American sanctions. The deal came after a meeting between Trump and Erdogan last year and sees the bank make no admission of criminal wrongdoing while........

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