Trump Eyes rising sanctions, the potential sale of Turkey fighter planes

First of all on the fox: President Donald Trump plans to raise sanctions and take up the sale of Turkey fighter planes after a conversation with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Trump expressed his intention to help finalize the sale of F-16 Fighter Jets in Turkey and is open to the idea of ​​selling Turkey its real precious objective, F-35 jets, if the two parties can reach an agreement that makes the Russian S-400 system Russian System, two sources.

This agreement might seem partly to unravel the machines or move it to a base controlled by the United States in Türkiye.

The Congress approved the sale of $ 23 billion of 40 F-16s and modernization kits for 79 in its current fleet in Turkey last year, but there are negotiations in progress between the Ministry of Défin des Dindes and Lockheed Martin, which builds the jet.

The Turkish authorities stop Erdogan's key rival

President Donald Trump explores the possibility of bringing Turkey back into the F-35 program. (Reuters / Marco Garcia / File photo)

Trumps' team has requested a legal and technical analysis of how this could avoid finding Turkey in violation of the fight against adversaries in America through sanctions on sanctions (CAATSA), according to a source familiar with demand.

The State Department and the National Security Council could not be joined to comment.

The United States has agreed to extend a renunciation allowing Turkey to buy Russian natural gas until May, Bloomberg reported THURSDAY.

Trump and Erdogan spoke by phone on Sunday, and the Turkish government is trying to firm up plans to bring Erdogan to the United States to visit Trump in the near future.

The Turkish Embassy underlined a reading of the Call of the Erdogan office which said that the president had expressed in Trump, “in order to develop cooperation between the two countries in the defense industry, it is necessary to put an end to the sanctions of CAATSA, to finalize the purchasing process of the F-16 and to finalize the reversal of Trkiye in the F-35 program.”

Erdogan asked the United States to raise sanctions against Syria, where a new governing force, HTS, overthrew Bashar al-Assad with Turkish support. The American team did not provide reading the call.

Turkey was expelled from the F-35 program following its purchase of a Russian Mobile Missile S-400 missile system due to spy problems associated with a system exploited with Kremlin so close to high-level American technology such as F-35.

“The F-35 cannot coexist with a Russian intelligence collection platform which will be used to find out more about its advanced capacities,” said the White House in 2019, adding that the purchase would have “harmful effects” on the participation of turkeys in NATO.

Turkey was withdrawn from the F-35 program after buying the S-400 air defense system in Russia in 2019. (Reuters / Evgenia novozhenina)

Ankara, the capital of Turkey, had negotiated the $ 2.5 billion agreement with Russia for the S400 in 2017, despite American warnings that there would be political and economic consequences. In an effort to dissuade Turkey, the United States has proposed to sell the Patriot system, but Ankara wanted the technology of the missiles sensitive to the systems to be, and the United States refused.

American considerations come after the United Kingdom offered a price proposal to Turkey to buy 40 of its Eurofighter typhoon hunting planes last week.

A decision to sell Turkey F-35 would prove controversial and, a rapid concern of the American allies like Israel, where Turkey cut all relations due to the Gaza war last year, and Greece due to disputes over Cyprus and surrounding waters.

Experts describe the F-35 as a “status symbol”. “The F-35 Club is really intended for trusted allies,” said Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“It is a Türkiye who supports the Houthis, that President Trump bombards and supports Hamas and supports Hezbollah,” said Endy Zemenids, executive director of Hellenic American Leadership Council. “We know they don't want to be a customer, they want to be a competitor on the arms market.”

Trump was only placed to whisper Erdogans' ear on Turkish regional ambitions: the Greek Minister of Defense

The Recep Tayyip team Erdogan is looking to finalize a meeting with President Donald Trump, on the left, soon. (AP photo / pablo martinez monssivis, file)

However, Turkey’s isolation, which has the second largest permanent soldier after the United States to NATO, could push them to go to Russia and China for weapons supplies.

“Trump wants to do a trade agreement here, right? We don't need Turkey with nearly a million soldiers on the other side and to lean more to Russia and China, right?” said Jonathan Bass, CEO of LNG Silver and International Trade Expert.

“Turkey is a spine not resolved in the side of the NATO alliance,” said Schanzer, “it certainly seems to be a priority for the Trump administration to try to bring them back to the fold.”

However, he added: “There is the deficit of democracy and the autocratic trends of Erdogan. All these things create a very cloudy image for American engagement. So his buyer are wary.”

“Turkey is a great economy. We need them to descend from the right side of the fence. We need it from the point of view of the supply chain,” countered the bass.

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He added that the United States had to associate Turkey on the mineral minerals. “Turkey has many more mining infrastructure,” he said. “They can help us in mining operations in Africa. We don't have people ready to do so.”

“If you don't give Erdogan a seat at the table, he will make his own table,” warned Bass.

“He wants to be respected as he should. He has 80 million people he represents. But we must give him clear lines of engagement.”