NATO Courts Turkey as Trump Pressures Alliance
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- NATO holds its summit in Ankara on Tuesday and Wednesday — its first in Turkey since 2004 — with Turkey now reassessed as critical after the wars in Ukraine and Iran and Trump's return to the White House, per analysts and NATO officials
- Trump told reporters in the Oval Office he would not have attended 'if not for the fact that it was being held in Turkey by President Erdogan,' giving Erdogan a pre-summit diplomatic win
- Turkey brings NATO its second-largest army, control of Black Sea maritime access, and a defense export industry that topped $10 billion last year, producing drones and munitions faster and cheaper than Western rivals, per the German Marshall Fund's Ankara office
- Trump administration officials want to sell Turkey advanced F-35 fighter jets, from which it was barred in 2019 after Ankara acquired Russia's S-400 air defense system
- Turkey leveraged its diplomatic reach as a mediator — helping stabilize Syria after Assad's fall in 2024, brokering Gaza peace talks through its Hamas contacts, and maintaining channels in Iran despite being repeatedly targeted by Iranian missiles, per Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan
- NATO allies have gone publicly silent on Erdogan's domestic crackdown: opposition presidential hopeful Ekrem Imamoglu remains jailed on what is widely viewed as political charges, and a Turkish court recently ousted the leadership of the main opposition party, replacing its head with a figure Erdogan already defeated in 2023
Why it matters: Turkey wins effective silence on its democratic erosion — jailed opposition figure Ekrem Imamoglu and an ousted opposition party leadership draw no public NATO protest — while Ankara potentially secures F-35 access and leverages its second-largest NATO army, Black Sea access, and $10 billion-plus defense industry at a moment when depleted European arsenals and Trump's threats to reduce the U.S. role make alienating Erdogan impossible.
