Last night, Bloomberg broke the story that Turkiye has suspended all trade with Israel. The Bloomberg account noted that Turkiye had announced the day before that it was joining South Africa in its genocide case against Israel.
A later Financial Times story provides official confirmation after Bloomberg cited “two high official” providing the scoop. From the Financial Times:
Turkey has halted trade with Israel as it again accused the country of stoking a “humanitarian disaster” in Gaza, marking the latest sign of deepening tensions between the two nations.
Ankara’s trade ministry late on Thursday said all export and import transactions related to Israel had been stopped and would not resume until the Jewish state “allows an uninterrupted and sufficient flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza”.
Ankara in April sanctioned exports in 54 important categories of goods but this latest move will disrupt bilateral trade worth more than $7bn a year. A
Even though Turkiye is depicting the move as temporary, it is conditioning the reversal on Israel allowing adequate humanitarian aid into Gaza, which no way, no how is going to happen. Israel has escalated from sniping Gazans running to get food and supplies from aid deliveries to leaving food-can-like explosives about that go boom on the attempt to open them:
Mohammad Samour (14 years old) is the latest victim of Israeli explosives, which look like food cans.
Several citizens, mostly children, fell victim to the Israeli explosives, while Israel continues to starve over 2 million people in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/t3HVjVGF6J
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) May 2, 2024
Interestingly, this development is getting varying play in the media. It’s now the lead story at the BBC, but below the fold at the Financial Times and nowhere to be found at the Wall Street Journal. The Financial Times and the Twitterverse speculate that this move is due to Erdogan’s party having performed markedly worse in March elections than expected, and his inaction on Gaza was a big reason why. Erdogan has made multiple rousing speeches in Ankara to very large and enthusiastic crowds, depicting Hamas as freedom fighters, seeking to give the impression that Turkiye might Do Something. The sometimes excitable Scott Ritter read it this way. Erdogan also hosted Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Turkiye in April But the normally wily Erdogan looks to have misplayed this one and is now changing course.
Turkiye in 2023 was only Israel’s #7 trade partner, but its relative importance may have increased of late with Houthi shelling of ships, since Turkiye presumably already conducts a lot of this exchange over land routes and could shift more that way if necessary. Nevertheless, the original Bloomberg account showed that Turkiye-Israel trade has already taken a hit even before this sanction. One wonders how much was due to the big 4Q contraction of the Israel economy:
Iran Observer points out that Turkiye provides unspecified metal supplies that Israel needs for weapons so this move may indeed inflict some damage. The original Bloomberg story said Turkiye’s biggest export to Israel is iron and steel. It isn’t clear if these are the metals Israel allegedly so keenly needs or other ones
⚡️BREAKING
Turkey suspends all trade with Israel, including metal, which is the need of the day for the Israeli arms industry
Israel vows retaliation pic.twitter.com/XgSSHM4V94
— Iran Observer (@IranObserver0) May 2, 2024
Israel has threatened to retaliate. With Turkiye-Israel being over 3/4 skewed toward exports to Israel, one wonders Israel could strike back. Cutting off trade would seem to forestall meaningful economic retaliation. Bloomberg said that Israel’s biggest export to Turkiye was “refined oil products”. Presumably Turkiye can get those many places, such as India, which is a leading refiner and shipper of Russian crude. Admittedly there will be some hassle and higher costs in any switchover.
The US needs Turkiye’s support or at least acquiescence for its Ukraine misadventure so the idea of the US retaliating on behalf of Israel risks Turkiye imposing new measures, the most extreme of which would be limiting or denying access to the critical Incirlik air base. Recall Turkiye’s lease gives Turkiye much more control than is typical of US airbases abroad. The reason for Ritter’s enthusiasm for Erdogan’s bold talk was that Turkiye is the only actor in the region who has the military clout to bring Israel to heel (without causing a nuclear war or destroying many Gulf oil fields).
In other words, if Israel further presses Turkiye, say with a stunt like an assassination, it risks the worst possible outcome, of Turkiye moving into formal opposition to Israel. The last thing the US and Israel needs is Turkiye lining up with Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas. Even soft support or the threat of it would be a further and very large setback.
And it is not as if Turkiye and Isreal had such a great relationship before that. Relevant parts of the BBC account:
In 1949, Turkey was the first Muslim-majority country to recognise Israel. But relations have worsened in recent decades.
In 2010, Turkey broke off diplomatic ties with Israel after 10 pro-Palestinian Turkish activists were killed in clashes with Israeli commandos who boarded a Turkish-owned ship trying to break Israel’s maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Relations were restored in 2016, but both countries expelled each other’s top diplomats two years later in a dispute over Israel’s killing of Palestinians amid protests on the Gaza-Israel border.
Bloomberg noted:
Israel and Turkey restored diplomatic ties last August after a decade of tensions and were exploring ways to increase cooperation until Hamas launched its Oct. 7 attack on the Jewish state, sparking the war.
The BBC also includes the handwave that the infamous pier will be ready real soon, yessiree, and then adds: “However, the UN says a maritime corridor can never be a substitute for delivery by land, and that land routes are the only way to bring in the bulk of supplies needed.”
It’s doubtful that the US can bribe Erdogan into relenting. The long-lived leader seems to regard getting credibly tough with Israel as essential to his political survival. And Erdogan just went through a round of concession-extraction over Turkiye’s vote to admit Sweden to NATO. So the low-hanging fruit has already been provided. And that process took a very long time, when delay in relieving this trade embargo will increase the pain.
