Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has trodden a fine line between the west, Russia and China for more than two decades. Turkey has profited from helping both sides in Russia’s war against Ukraine, extended its military reach and influence in Syria, Libya, the south Caucasus, the eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf, spread its soft power in Africa, central Asia and the western Balkans, and built a substantial national defence industry.

When international relations experts assess this, they often fall back on the term “balancing act”. Turkish analysts prefer to speak of a quest for “strategic autonomy” – the ability to defend the country’s interests against all threats without being dependent on any outside power.

But in the second Trump era can Erdoğan sustain his geopolitical acrobatics and reap benefits? A bromance between the two strongmen characterised Trump’s last term but there was also a series of clashes and misunderstandings that sowed deep distrust between Turkey and the US.

“This is [Erdogan’s] fifth US president … he’s not exactly afraid of the Oval Office,” Aaron Stein, a Turkey specialist who is president of the US Foreign Policy Research Institute, told a recent European Policy Centre event. The relationship is now one of stable instability, he said, and while the two countries don’t get along well any more, “there’s no breaking of the Nato link”.

Under Donald Trump’s first administration, the US kicked Turkey out of its flagship F35 fighter aircraft consortium after Ankara defied Washington by buying an advanced air defence system from Russia.

For his part, Erdoğan accused the US of harbouring and abetting Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish Islamic preacher based in Pennsylvania, whom he blamed for a 2016 coup attempt that nearly toppled him. Gülen died last year, removing one irritant.

At one point, Trump publicly threatened to destroy Turkey’s economy if Erdoğan sent troops into Syria to attack US-backed........

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