Winds of War shift quickly

TURKEY - In Brief 16 Oct 2019 by Atilla Yesilada
Singer-actor, former heavy weight boxing champ, ex-convict and philosopher Mike Tyson once remarked “Everybody has a game plan going into the ring. After the first punch to the nose, you scrap it and do the best you can”. This is certainly the fate facing Turkey. Nothing has gone according to the battle plans, though mostly because of “external circumstances”.This brief is truly brief, because winds of war shift very rapidly, meaning I may have to eat my words tomorrow. At the end my temporary analysis is thatErdogan stands to lose battlefield gains in the political and economic arena. Trump slaps “friendly sanctions” on Turkey Probably afraid of not having enough votes in the Senate to sustain a potential veto, Trump tried to preempt Congressional anger by levying salutary sanctions on Turkey. Steel duties were raised to 50%, talks on a Free Trade Agreement were suspended, as Defense, Interior and Energy Ministries were targeted with primary and secondary sanctions. I call these “friendly sanctions” because the content pales in gravity compared to the Graham-van Hollen sanctions bill with one caveat.Financial Times wrote:“Steven Mnuchin, US Treasury secretary, said on Monday evening that Mr Trump had signed an executive order, effective immediately, imposing sanctions on Turkey’s defence, energy and interior ministers, as well as the Turkish government’s defence and energy departments. Speaking outside the White House, Mr Mnuchin said “secondary sanctions” would apply to financial institutions that carry out transactions for the sanctioned individuals and departments”. (link here) No, not Halkbank again!!! According to Bloomberg and Reuters, U.S. brought a criminal ca...

Now read on...

Register to sample a report

Register
Sign-in
Forgot your password?
Copyright 2025 GlobalSource Partners. All rights reserved. This is prepared for GlobalSource Partners’ clients and may not be redistributed, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, retransmitted or disclosed, in whole or in part, or in any form or manner, without the express written consent of GlobalSource Partners. This is distributed simultaneously to our website and other portals used by GlobalSource Partners. The information herein was obtained from various sources and is believed to be reliable but GlobalSource Partners does not warrant its completeness or accuracy. Neither GlobalSource Partners nor any Country Analyst, officer or employee accepts any liability whatsoever for any direct, indirect or consequential damages or losses rising from any use of this or its contents.