40 United States The EconomistNovember 16th 2019
N
o one knowswhy President Donald Trump is so fond of auto-
crats—including his “friend” Muhammad bin Salman, “highly
respected” Viktor Orban, beloved Kim Jong Un and of course Vladi-
mir “so highly respected” Putin. But there is little doubt his predi-
lection has turned out better for the strongmen than for America.
Compared with subjugating a country, handling Mr Trump is
not hard. The autocrats quickly realised the president wants a spe-
cial rapport with them more than almost any policy outcome. That
is why Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi—Mr Trump’s “favourite dictator”—felt
able to pull Egypt out of the administration’s main Middle Eastern
gambit, its so-called “Arab nato”, a day after visiting the White
House. It is why even Xi Jinping, at the rough end of Mr Trump’s ta-
riffs, has received a few plums, such as the president dismissing
pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong as “riots”. Yet no foreign
leader has taken more skilful advantage of Mr Trump’s soft spot
than his guest in Washington this week, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Even before he persuaded Mr Trump to abandon the Syrian
Kurds last month, Mr Erdogan was responsible for a serious deteri-
oration in American-Turkish relations. Angered by Barack
Obama’s failure to intervene more forcefully against his enemy
Bashar al-Assad, among other grievances, the Islamist leader re-
fused to take strong action against the jihadists crowding across
Turkey’s southern border to join Islamic State. When the Obama
administration backed another of his enemies, the Syrian Kurds,
against the jihadists, Mr Erdogan looked for other ways to hit back.
He has strained Turkey’s relations within natoand pushed it
further away from the European Union. He has embraced Ameri-
ca’s regional adversaries, Iran and Russia, from which Turkey has
bought a missile-defence system that could give Mr Putin access to
natomilitary secrets. Lest America miss the hint, Mr Erdogan’s
bodyguards roughed up journalists outside the venerable Brook-
ings Institution during the Turkish leader’s last call on Mr Obama,
in 2016. During his first call on Mr Trump, they launched a more vi-
cious assault on anti-Erdogan protesters and American police offi-
cers that left blood on the pavement outside the Turkish ambassa-
dor’s residence in Washington. Already alarmed by Mr Erdogan’s
democratic backsliding, Congress, the Pentagon and State Depart-
ment were appalled. Many questioned whether Turkey was stillthe crucial democratic Muslim ally, and “window onto the Middle
East”, that Mr Obama and his predecessor George W. Bush saw it as.
Yet Mr Trump, subject to an unrelenting charm offence by Mr
Erdogan, declared the two countries “as close as we’ve ever been.”
Beyond his usual regard for strongmen, he perhaps noted the
many coincidences between himself and Mr Erdogan. Both are
populists with a flair for stirring up religious conservatives. Both
are fixated on interest rates and the “deep state” (a phrase that orig-
inated in Turkey). Both mix politics, family and business. Both
have promoted a son-in-law—in Mr Erdogan’s case his finance
minister, Berat Albayrak—over two less able businessmen-sons.
Mr Erdogan’s approach stressed these similarities, with Mr Al-
bayrak contacting Jared Kushner via a Turkish business partner of
Mr Trump’s. Some suspect there may be more than national inter-
ests at stake. Mr Trump had investments in Turkey (and claimed to
have a “little conflict” of interest there) before he became presi-
dent. It seems equally possible Mr Erdogan has endeared himself
to the president merely by making the bilateral relationship feel
like a mano-a-mano business one, with no side-deals involved.
Mr Trump, who calls the Islamist a “hell of a leader” and “friend
of mine”, has deferred legally mandated sanctions on Turkey for
its Russian missile-defence deal. His administration has also de-
layed penalising a Turkish bank for sanctions-busting in Iran. And
the more anger this has stirred in Washington, among Elizabeth
Warren, Mitch McConnell, in fact almost everyone outside the
president’s family, the more vindicated Mr Trump seems to feel.
He considers squealing from the Washington establishment an
end in itself—and Mr Erdogan has egged him on. “The ushas an es-
tablished order that we can call a deep state—of course they are ob-
structing,” Turkey’s president lamented.
Mr Erdogan’s mastery of Mr Trump was even clearer over the
Syrian Kurds. In demanding America step back while his troops
pushed them from his border, he appealed to Mr Trump’s inchoate
desire to withdraw from Middle Eastern wars. Yet the us-backed
Kurdish operation in north-eastern Syria was a textbook example
of America not exposing its troops to a necessary war. The Kurds
were doing the fighting on its behalf. That is a role Turkish troops
might have been expected to fill; yet Mr Erdogan considered Islam-
ic State a lesser enemy than Mr Assad or the Kurds.
Mr Trump’s abandonment of the Kurds was an equally textbook
blunder. It has empowered Mr Assad and Russia, with whom the
Kurds have made a desperate alliance. It has made America look
fickle and weak. It will lead to no significant withdrawal of Ameri-
can forces. It was also unnecessary, because American envoys
were already hatching a plan to move the Kurds back from the
Turkish border. And it has further aggravated anti-Turkish feeling
in Washington—as shown by the House of Representatives’ vote to
recognise the Ottoman empire’s onslaught against Armenians as a
genocide and sanctions bills against Turkey in both chambers.
This seems to have constrained Mr Trump’s largesse to Mr Erdo-
gan a bit. Though he showered him with endearments at the White
House this week, he did not promise the sanctions’ let-off Mr Erdo-
gan craves. His restraint may be brief—with Mr Trump’s Republi-
can critics about to switch to defence mode as his impeachment
looms. Yet the mutual resentments unleashed by Mr Erdogan’s
grandstanding and Mr Trump’s pandering will in any event be en-
during. At every level beneath the presidency, America and Turkey
have turned away from each other, even as the foundations of their
alliance, nato, the euand American ambitions in the Middle East,
are being eroded. It is not certain they can be turned back. 7Lexington Iron hand in glove
The love-in between Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdogan is crippling the US-Turkish alliance