As the NATO summit convened in Ankara, Turkish President Erdogan revealed that the United States had pledged to provide aircraft, signaling a substantial thaw in US-Turkish defense relations, which had long been stalled due to the purchase of Russian-made S-400 missiles. The Trump administration's bypassing of congressional restrictions to advance support for the F110 engine and potential F-35 program signifies that the US is using "transactional diplomacy" to court Turkey, a key geopolitical hub.
Although this move has drawn strong opposition from Middle Eastern allies such as Israel, the restructuring of US-Turkish arms sales has directly boosted confidence in Turkey's defense industry chain, easing tensions on NATO's southeastern flank in the short term. On a macro level, the warming of US-Turkish relations lays the groundwork for a redistribution of regional interests following multi-front conflicts in the Middle East. In the foreign exchange market, this is expected to help stabilize the Turkish lira, and geopolitical risk premiums are shifting towards a geopolitical tug-of-war.
