Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took aim at US President Donald Trump over Turkey’s currency crisis today, in a clear break with his government’s earlier policy of keeping the American leader out of tensions with the United States.
Trump announced Aug. 10 via Twitter that the United States would be doubling steel and aluminum tariffs for Turkey “as their currency, the Turkish Lira, slides rapidly against our very strong Dollar!” Erdogan said in response, “You might be the president. But you can’t out of the blue say, ‘I’ve imposed this and that tariff on steel and aluminum.’” Speaking at a gathering of Turkish ambassadors, Erdogan, suggested that Trump, not Turkey, stood to lose: “On the one hand you are a strategic partner; on the other you shoot yourself in the foot.”
