Trump’s Turkey shoot

After weeks of silence and inaction on the issue of Syria, President Trump has finally done something that will affect the outcome of the Syrian civil war. The influence will not be positive.

Using his favorite policy platform – Twitter – Trump announced Friday that as the Turkish Lira “slides rapidly downward against our very strong Dollar,” the United States will increase tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum. As the New York Times reports, his 50 percent tariff on steel will “effectively [price] Turkish steel out of the American market, which [accounts] for 13 percent of Turkey’s steel exports.”

The run on the Lira, which has been brewing for the past few weeks, is now fully in gear. The self-fulfilling prophecy of foreign-exchange traders selling the Lira before it further loses value, hence depreciating the currency, is in full force. Investors are instead rushing to short the Lira, amplifying the detrimental effect on its value. President Trump boasting about how “strong” the dollar is – which, seeing how uncompetitive American exports are as a result, is not a good thing – does not help.

What does this mean for the countries around Turkey? In the past twenty years, through their “zero-problems” foreign policy and aim for broader strategic influence in the Middle East, Turkey has been increasing its exports to Arab states. Turkish trade with the Middle East and the Gulf increased by 22.1 percent in 2017 alone. As the Lira continues to plummet and Erdoğan continues to shake confidence in the independence of Turkey’s Central Bank, Turkey’s economic strife will have repercussions across the region. It might even cause a domino effect by rattling investor confidence in other economically struggling countries in the region, such as Jordan.

The issue here is what Turkey’s economic troubles, and President Trump’s decision to pile on at the worst possible time, mean for the conflict in Syria. This is particularly salient in the Northern region of Idlib. After Russia and the Syrian government “liberated” the south of Syria of opposition fighters in June and July, Idlib is the last region in Syria with an active Arab military opposition to Assad – IS pockets of influence in the south and the east notwithstanding. During regime attacks on rebel strongholds in Homs in 2014-15, Aleppo in 2016, and Eastern Ghouta and Deraa in 2018, many opposition militias struck deals with the Syrian regime for safe passage to Idlib in exchange for their surrender. The same goes for a significant number of internally displaced persons, who fled regime-held areas and headed for Idlib in the hopes of protection from Assad or the opportunity to leave Syria for Turkey.

The result is that the Idlib region is currently home to more than 2.5 million people, up from 750,000 before the beginning of the war. Idlib is also home to a number of Turkey-sponsored political and military groups, as Turkey hopes to maintain Idlib as a zone of influence for the foreseeable future; it has already spent considerable sums of money in reconstruction efforts, in the hopes that it can return Syrian refugees currently in Turkey to Idlib – despite the fact that most of them are not from Idlib. As the last remaining rebel stronghold, Idlib is also the next military target for the Syrian government

Speculation abounds that the only thing stopping Assad from launching his offensive on Idlib is Russian calls for restraint, as well as a Turkish “red line” warning the Syrian government not to invade Idlib. This is where Turkey’s economic woes become important, particularly as they can be attributed to American actions.

Trump’s tweet will only increase animosity between the US and an economically desperate Turkey. As a result, Turkey is likely to accelerate its turn towards economic cooperation with Russia, with whom they signed a gas pipeline deal in July. Economic cooperation, however, comes with strings attached, and it is likely that Russia will use its greater economic leverage to defuse the chances of a Syrian-Turkish conflict. This would result in Turkish withdrawal from Idlib, and – as Middle East Institute scholar Charles Lister details – a military and humanitarian crisis on a scale unlike anything seen in the Syrian civil war so far should Assad attack the overcrowded region of Idlib.

There is much to criticize about Turkey’s role in Syria. They have sponsored salafist and jihadist groups, encouraged ethnic conflict between the Arabs and the Kurds in the north, and impeded American efforts to liberate eastern Syria from IS by attacking the Kurds in Efrin in January. Trump’s administration, however, is not attempting to influence Turkey’s behavior in Syria in a positive manner, or even to punish Turkey for their actions in Syria. Instead, Trump is kicking Turkey while it is down, meaning that Trump’s first active contribution to the conflict in Syria is somehow worse than America’s inaction in the past few months. As usual, it will be the Syrian population that suffers the most.