President Donald Trump has berated and belittled many of his European counterparts expected to attend next week’s NATO summit in Turkey. But host Recep Tayyip Erdogan has drawn on his close ties with the US leader to secure his presence at the Ankara event – an appearance that may even come with a significant gift related to Turkish defense.
“I would not have gone for most people,” Trump said last week. “But he called me up. He said: ‘Please, I have it in Turkey. You got to be there. The United States has to be in there.’ And so I’m going out of respect to President Erdogan.”
Leveraging that respect has helped Erdogan avoid the disarray that Trump’s absence would cause the alliance, particularly at a time when the Republican president has been repeatedly threatening to pull US forces from Europe and scale back America’s role in NATO, unsettling allies.
Trump, who has frequently praised Erdogan and has called him a “hell of a leader,” has long rebuked other NATO countries over their defense spending. He claimed last year’s pledge to collectively boost it as a major personal win. More recently, he has clashed with alliance members for failing to back his war against Iran.
But Trump has sweetened the deal for Erdogan by also hinting that he could make news during his visit related to jet engines and the potential sale of F-35 fighter jets barred for years because of Turkey’s closeness with Moscow.
