Crypto News: Erdoğan’s renewed swagger

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Until recently, Turkey's bid to join the European Union was firmly on ice.

Stalled in Brussels for years, Turkish officials were vocal about their disillusionment. The foreign minister groused that Europeans didn't want Turkey in the club.

Now it's moving back into the realms of the possible — thanks in no small part to President Donald Trump and his administration.

Trump's upending of US foreign policy is giving Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan a renewed swagger, and prompting EU officials to rethink their alliances.

As the Trump administration threatens European security, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte reportedly urged EU leaders to increase engagement with fellow alliance member Turkey.

A Turkish Air Force F-16. Photographer: Veli Gurgah/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

There's a clear case to be made for closer ties.

Under Erdoğan's more than two decades in power, Turkey has become one of the world's top 20 economies, and has scored some diplomatic successes including brokering the Black Sea grain deal with Russia.

More pertinently, Turkish defense capabilities from drones to artillery shells have taken it into the ranks of global players. It has strategic air bases and NATO's largest fleet of F-16 fighter jets after the US.

Turkish troops could even join any future peacekeeping mission in Ukraine, sources say.

That's allowed Erdoğan to crow that European security without Turkey is "unthinkable."

Still, the road to membership talks is rocky.

A judicial crackdown on dissent from business executives to opposition figures is worrying critics, including in Brussels. Ankara's friendly ties with China and Russia raise further questions.

Turkey, though, sees the changed security calculus as helping its case for a customs union with the EU or visa-free travel, if not full-blown membership yet.

Erdoğan says that only Turkey "can save the EU from the deadlock it has fallen into."

Bluster aside, he may have a point. — Beril Akman

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Photographer: Oliver Bunic/Bloomberg

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On the latest episode of Trumponomics, we try to understand a possible "Mar-a-Lago Accord" and the views of Stephen Miran, nominee to lead the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Host Stephanie Flanders is joined by Shawn Donnan, senior writer for economics with Bloomberg, and Mark Sobel, the US chairman of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Chart of the Day

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And Finally

Investors are quietly betting that Trump's overtures to Moscow for a deal to end the war in Ukraine will eventually translate into Russia's return to the global financial markets, with deeply discounted securities soaring in value if sanctions imposed after the 2022 invasion are lifted. At stake in the gamble on Russia's rehabilitation are hundreds of billions of dollars in trade and investment opportunities, while commodities companies that avoided sanctions are eager to diversify away from China. Still, enormous hurdles stand in the way of Russia coming in from the cold.