The current political focus may be on Ukraine, but there are reasons to be just as concerned about how President Trump may have made U.S. policy toward Turkey subservient to his personal interests.
Tim Miller has a rundown on The Bulwark of what we know about Trump’s financial and other entanglements in Turkey, in addition to key events that suggest reasons for concern. The TL;DR is as follows:
Trump enabled a despot who has significant leverage over his business in a brutal ethnic cleansing of our ally, cutting an opaque sweetheart deal negotiated by the sons-in-law of Erdogan, Trump, and Trump’s business partner.
Meanwhile, Erdogan has empowered Trump’s business partner, making him Turkey’s key man in Washington, which gives him inordinate influence on the administration and ensures that the financial interests of all involved are maintained.
The relevant relationships and policies cry out for further investigation. The story here may be more complicated than the Ukraine “quid pro quo,” but it’s no less troubling.
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