President Donald Trump suggested the US could lift sanctions on Türkiye and allow it to buy US F-35 jets as he kicked off talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday, but said he wanted Ankara to stop purchases of Russian oil.
Erdogan’s first visit to the White House in about six years started off with a warm welcome from Trump. Seated side by side in the Oval Office, Trump called Erdogan a “very tough man” and said they remained “friends” while his predecessor Joe Biden was in office.
Ankara is keen to leverage the friendly personal relationship to further national interests and take advantage of a US administration eager to make deals in return for big-ticket arms and trade agreements.
Still, Trump pressed Erdogan to cut off oil purchases from Russia, as he tries to put pressure on Russia’s sources for funding its war in Ukraine. Türkiye, Hungary and Slovakia are the main European purchasers of Russian oil.
“I’d like to have him stop buying any oil from Russia while Russia continues this rampage against Ukraine,” Trump said of Erdogan. Asked whether he was willing to make a deal to sell F-35s to Türkiye, Trump told reporters: “I think he’ll be successful in buying the things that he wants to buy.” Trump also said he could lift sanctions against Türkiye “very soon,” and that “if we have a good meeting, almost immediately.”
Biden had kept Türkiye at arm’s length partly over what it saw as the fellow Nato member’s close ties with Russia. Under Trump, who views Moscow more favourably and has closer personal ties with Erdogan, Ankara is hoping for a better relationship. Trump and Erdogan – both seen as increasingly autocratic by their critics at home – had a checkered relationship during the Republican president’s first term. But since his return to the White House, their interests have aligned on Syria – source of the biggest bilateral strain in the past – where the US and Türkiye now both strongly back the central government. They remain sharply at odds over US ally Israel’s attacks on Gaza, which Ankara calls a genocide – a potential wild card in what are otherwise expected to be friendly and transactional talks in the Oval Office.
The mood shift has renewed Turkish hopes that Trump and Erdogan, who have exchanged mutual praise, can find a way around US sanctions imposed by Trump himself in 2020 over Türkiye’s acquisition of Russian S-400 missile defences.
That, in turn, could pave the way for Ankara to buy Lockheed Martin’s advanced F-35 fighter jets, for which it was both a buyer and manufacturer until it was barred over the S-400s. Erdogan has said the defence industry, including the topic of F-35s and ongoing negotiations over 40 F-16 jets Ankara also wants, would be a focus of the meeting, along with regional wars, energy and trade.
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