Members of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s inner circle could hardly hide their glee over the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. Despite some notable breakthroughs in U.S.-Turkey relations during the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, key points of tension remain. Erdogan and his team are optimistic that with President-elect Donald Trump back in the White House, Washington will be an easier partner. Erdogan has some reasons for short-term optimism, but he may find himself disappointed over the longer term.
Ankara’s Selective Memory
In part, Ankara’s reaction to Trump’s victory is the result of selective memory. It was Trump, after all, who responded to Turkey’s continued detention of Andrew Brunson—a U.S. evangelical pastor arrested on espionage charges in 2016—with a threat to remove all U.S. diplomats from the country and “impose large sanctions.” It was Trump, too, who promised to “totally destroy and obliterate” Turkey’s economy in 2019 when tensions arose over both sides’ conflicting military agendas in Syria. In both cases, Turkey backed down. Trump also banned Turkey from purchasing the F-35 multi-role fifth-generation combat aircraft in July 2019 and imposed sanctions on Ankara in December 2020, both measures due to Turkey’s purchase of Russian-made S400 surface-to-air missiles.
Moreover, it was under Biden that, after lengthy wrangling, bilateral relations began to thaw, with Ankara dropping its hold on admitting Sweden and Finland into NATO in a tacit quid pro quo for U.S. approval of a sale of upgraded F-16s to Turkey.