Quote (ofthevoid @ May 29 2023 09:50pm)
Erdogan is not preferred by the west for a few reasons really. For one, their ties to Russia. Few years back Erdogan and the Turks signed contracts to buy S-400. This was a big blow to US influence in Turkey considering all of the threats we lobbed at them if they did so. More recently, they are a huge hub for Russian sanction circumvention. Everything from energy to flights and many other things. They really positioned themselves as neutral as much as a country can be considering the proximity to Russia/Ukraine and the fact that they are part of NATO really bother the US. It's something we don't like as obviously everyone around the globe has to commit seppuku and make sure Russia is suffering, no matter the cost to internal economics.
There's other good reasons, Erdogan has been clearly trying to position Turkey as a regional power broker. Syria, Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, etc. Sometimes their goals don't align with US policy ones, prime example being the Kurds.
I think someone like Erdogan is less likely to be controlled and is probably more illiberal and hawkish. IMO don't have enough knowledge of their internal dynamics to say this is good or bad for Turkey but the way Lira futures are reacting, financial markets are certainly not happy with this outcome.
Since you're a finance guy you should look into the situation in Turkey since Covid. Covid rekt their tourism industry and their manufacturing isn't value-add enough to keep USD coming in to pay for energy.
Erdogan has taken the approach of lowering interest rates and raising benefits in response to high inflation, and tried to stabilize the Lyra by using their international currency reserves to keep the value from falling further.
By all accounts its a shit show. The only reason they can keep the lights on is because of favorable treatment by Russia, China, etc.
This post was edited by NetflixAdaptationWidow on May 30 2023 11:17am