Turkish Treasury and Finance Minister, Barat Albayrak, son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, holds press conference as Turkish lira plunges to new low against the dollar. August 10,2018. Mustafa Alkac/Press Association. All rights reserved.
Mainstream pundits and media commentators see the crisis in US-Turkey relations and the collapse of the Turkish currency as a result of Turkey's refusal to hand over to the US an American Evangelical priest. The analysis here shows that the roots of the conflict in times of crisis, uncertainty and hegemonic instability, go far beyond political epiphenomena.
Turkey was thrust into a full-blown currency crisis when Donald Trump hoisted tariffs on Turkey’s steel and aluminium exports to the USA, the country’s most serious crisis since Erdogan’s AKP came to power 16 years ago. The Lira lost more than 40 percent of its value, albeit its most recent humble recovery. The pretext for Trump’s punishing attack on Turkey is the continued detention of the evangelical American Presbyterian missionary Andrew Brunson, described by Trump as a “fine gentleman and Christian leader”, who was arrested in October 2016 on charges of espionage accused of involvement in the attempted coup of July the same year.
