Erdogan’s meeting with Trump goes off well

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters on his flight back from Washington to Ankara that his meeting with US President Donald Trump had gone off well. He explained as to why he and Trump had been able to strike a rapport. He told reporters that Trump and he preferred to voice their views in a “straight and neat way”.

Erdogan viewed Turkey-US relations in purely business terms. He said, “First and foremost, we discussed the steps we can take for strengthening our trade and investment ties based on our mutual interests. We have also exchanged views on steps for facilitating our bilateral trade including reviewing tariffs, so that we can reach our goal of $100 billion trade volume.”

Meanwhile, Turkey and the US signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on civil nuclear energy cooperation. Turkey’s Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar signed the MoU on Strategic Civilian Nuclear Cooperation with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Bayraktar wrote on the social media platform NSosyal: “I hope the work to be carried out within the scope of the agreement will produce mutual benefits for both countries in the coming period.”

The Turkey -US relations have not been smooth. In 2019, Trump in his first presidential term had removed Turkey from the list of countries the US could sell the F-35 fighter jets to. Trump is eager to get the deal revived and Trump said that he knows Erdogan wants to buy them. Trump is not too happy with Turkey buying oil from Russia in the context of the war in Ukraine, but Trump has played it soft.

He has not been as harsh as he has been with China and India on buying Russian oil. Trump only said, “I’d like him to have stop buying any oil from Russia while Russia continues this rampage against Ukraine.”

Erdogan has been very critical of Israel’s war in Gaza, and condemned the genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. Trump has sidestepped the thorny issue of Erdogan’s and Turkey’s stance in the matter. Instead, the US president in good humour praised Erdogan. Trump said, “We’ve had a good relationship for a long time. This is a tough man. This is a guy who’s highly opinionated. Usually, I don’t like opinionated people, but I always like this one.”

It seems that he wants to keep Erdogan and Turkey on the American side because he understands that Erdogan is the only interlocutor with Russia as all of the other members of NATO – Turkey is the only non-European, non-Western member of the military alliance – leaders are openly hostile to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Though Trump speaks directly to Putin, he seems to have crossed the red line when he is no longer on talking terms with the Russian president. That leaves Erdogan as the only leader in the region who can talk to Putin. Trump has acknowledged the role of Erdogan in the overthrow of the Bashar Al Assad government in Syria, and how Turkey is supporting the new government headed by Ahmed al-Shara.

Erdogan is not exactly on firm ground in his country. There is a loud and strong opposition arrayed against him. And he is struggling to put Turkey’s economy back on track as it were after his failed maverick attempts to run the economy his own way. Now he has experts advising him on the complicated issues of economic policy. Despite his bluster, Trump too is facing huge criticism at home, especially on the economy. Here are two leaders who are facing challenges on home ground, and they want to project the image of leaders who want to regional and world problems.