A $100 Billion Bluff

Sergei Strokan talks about what Trump can give Turkey.

The visit of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the United States is one of those rare occasions that attract the attention of dozens of world capitals all over the world. It is not only because of the important optics that the public hearings of the Donald Trump impeachment inquiry create, or because of the tensions over the Kurds, which Erdogan’s voters are anxiously waiting to be resolved.

The stakes are much higher.

In the presently highly polarized world, divided into “friends” and “foes” of the United States and Turkey, President Trump and President Erdogan are more than just the leaders of the two countries. Each of them reflects a certain matrix of political values that serves as an example for other states, either consciously or not.

Trump, who has been destroying the liberal world order and its shared policies, embraces total negativism, megalomania and shock therapy. His pulsating Twitter account is his tool for getting his ideas across, where the U.S. president does not mind preaching, making promises, threatening, blackmailing and bluffing.

At first glance, Erdogan does the same thing, just on a smaller scale. If that is true, both the U.S. and the Turkish presidents represent the same type of nationalist politicians with great power. The main difference is that President Erdogan is much less powerful than President Trump.

But just at first glance. One can interpret Trump’s behavior as a reorganization (or destruction) of the current world order, whereas Erdogan is just struggling to survive in a rapidly changing world.

A good reflection of Trump’s matrix is the fake news about a $100 billion deal that Trump was allegedly ready to sign with Turkey, despite the fact that not long before that, Trump had promised to “wipe out” the Turkish economy.

It is typical of the U.S. president to embellish his international initiatives with impressive price tags – that way, it is easier to show the American public that while the Democrats will not let the president do his job, he is trying his best to make sure America will profit.

In 2017, after President Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, the U.S. announced it was going to sign a $110 billion arms deal with Riyadh, which was going to be worth $350 billion over 10 years, and be the biggest arms deal in history. Trump also promised a $10 billion deal with Turkey, which would allow it to buy 100 F-35 fighter jets. The anticipated deal never happened, but Trump nevertheless achieved the desired media effect.

Trump’s offer to President Erdogan to sign another historic deal and settle the tensions surrounding the delivery of Russian S-400 missiles looks like an offer to fly to the moon together. Not necessarily feasible, but it sounds tempting with all its promising unpredictability and scale.

Eventually, President Erdogan is not going to end up with nothing. Other states are going to see how much the United States is ready to offer Turkey; how much Turkey matters to the United States.

Russia is going to see that too.