President Donald Trump told reporters that he’s working with his Cabinet to drop sanctions on Turkey, originally imposed over the country’s purchase of Russian air defense systems.Trump met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Tuesday morning ahead of the NATO summit, where he heaped praise on his close ally. Despite Erdogan’s controversial record on human rights, Trump claimed to have “no concerns about anything having to do with” the U.S.-Turkey relationship.Trump interjected into a question a Turkish reporter posed to Erdogan about existing U.S. sanctions, telling the room that “we’re going to be taking the sanctions off.”
“I don’t want him to waste his time answering that question because we’re working very closely with Marco Rubio, very famous man, great secretary of state, and with [Treasury Secretary] Scott Besent, and with [War Secretary] Pete [Hegseth], and everybody else. We’re going to be taking the sanctions off. It’s time to do that,” Trump stated. “We don’t want to sanction friends. It’s very simple.”“They are a nation that’s been very, very good — and I can only speak for myself as president — they’ve been extraordinary in many ways, with respect to our relationship, including trying to end the war with Iran, or whatever you call it,” he added in response to a separate question. “I don’t think he wants to see them have a nuclear weapon either.”TRUMP SAYS HE’S WORKING WITH CONGRESS ON A TRUMP ACCOUNTS FOR ‘GROWN-UPS’You can watch Trump’s comments in full below.
