© Kayhan Ozer/Presidential Palace / Reuters
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan with Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.
For years, Turkey and Qatar were at the vanguard of the Western imperial project in the Middle East. Having had their fingers burnt in Syria, however, they're refusing to facilitate Washington's Iran plans - and paying the price.
Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia in May last year - his first foreign trip as president - was significant for two main reasons: first, the $110 billion arms deal it produced, and secondly, the regional blockade of Qatar it heralded. This was widely seen as having been
greenlighted by Trump during his visit. The impact of the blockade - implemented by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt - was, however, immediately mitigated by increased trade with Iran and Turkey in particular,
limiting its overall impact.
This month's attack on the Turkish economy, however, has had far more devastating results. Trump's tweet on August 10 - announcing a doubling of steel and aluminum tariffs on an economy already hit hard by his trade war - sent the Turkish currency into freefall. By the end of the day's trading, it had lost 16 percent of its value, reaching a nadir of 7.2 to the dollar two days later; before his tweet, it had never fallen below six to the dollar. Trump's move came on the back of Federal Reserve policies that were already threatening to provoke
financial crises in over-indebted emerging markets such as Turkey.
These are harsh punishments for countries long considered prime US allies in the region.
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