| Right now I am again in Turkey after a while. Back then(like 5 years ago?), the USA was seen righteous but demanding country and if you go off-limits bad things can happen to you. Now Turkey acquired Russian made defence system s400 that was supposed to devastate the economy through embargoes. A few years ago a wealthy Iranian businessman living in Turkey was caught laundering billions of dollars through a Turkish state bank, He was well known for his connections in the Erdogan government. This was supposed to devastate the Turkish banking sector, bringing huge huge fines like those that French or British banks paid back in the day. These and many other actions were supposed to make Uncle Sam very angry and punish Erdogan. Nothing of significance happened.
Actually, a year ago Trump plummeted the Turkish lira with few tweets but it was about a prisoner that was kept hostage that created political trouble to Trump. These days it's not a credible position to say "Erdogan, don't do that it may bring trouble", everyone who advocated this position is now a laughing stock. Europe seems to be behind the curve on this, they are still afraid to trade with Iran but I think that it will happen. They just need to find a way to do it while helping with the presidents career, it worked marvellously with Erdogan. Sometimes I think Erdogan has Jedi superpowers over Trump, it was amazing how He and Trump entered Syria despite of Pentagon and the US allies. Anyway, times are changing. I hope after the change we plateau in a nice position, I would not be thrilled to see Chinese or Russian style governments be the new de facto way of how the world works. The liberal waster world order was nice(though not perfect) when we had it, I dislike the current trends. |
Turkey was removed from the F35 program, for which they are a manufacturer. They are barred from purchasing the 100 F35s they wanted. They will lose that manufacturing position and the jobs that go with it. They have been demanding to still have the right to purchase the F35 jets - they will not be able to so long as they have the S400s.
Turkey was manufacturing about 1,000 parts for the F35. That has now been reduced to 12 as of November. It will drop to zero during 2020.
Losing access to the next generation of planes to upgrade their air force and losing their manufacturing role is significant, according to Turkey's own behavior and words on the matter (Erdogan states it very plainly that they are upset about it). The Turkish economy is a mess right now, having just finally climbed out of a recession. The unemployment rate had climbed from under 10% to 14% as of August. Clearly Turkey could use those manufacturing jobs and they know it.