Turkey counts risks, rewards of Harris or Trump win as Erdogan hedges
Ankara remains cautious in the face of a tight US presidential race, aware that the election outcome could reshape cooperation on key issues like defense, Israel and Syria.
As the 2024 US presidential election looms, Ankara is bracing for the two potential outcomes: a stormy, high-risk affair with a reelected Donald Trump or a more dependable relationship with Kamala Harris, the Democrat candidate.
“Compared to previous elections, Ankara is indeed quieter,” said Sinan Ulgen, chair of the Istanbul-based think tank Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies. “President Erdogan has refrained from giving a clear message on which candidate he supports.”
This caution is partly due to the bitter lesson of the last US election, in which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s high praise for Trump, with whom he had a turbulent but functional relationship between 2016 and 2020, became a liability when Joe Biden won the presidency.
“There is little doubt that Erdogan would prefer to see Trump, with whom he had a functioning relationship,” Ulgen added, a sentiment confirmed by a former member of Erdogan’s entourage who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.
