| | | İBRAHİM ÖZTÜRK
i.ozturk@todayszaman.com | ![]() |
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| | | Turkey and the US have been in a strategic partnership since the beginning of the Cold War era that followed World War II. | |
There are several vectors to this partnership, including politics, security and the economy. However, the strategic partnership file is heavily biased in favor of security issues at the expense of economic as well as political issues. During his last visit to the US, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's agenda was overloaded with several issues ranging from security and politics to the economy. Turkey, having the characteristics of a fragile peripheral country, is not capable of cultivating satisfactory results from such a full-capacity agenda.
As it is quite obvious, there is no need to discuss the lopsided dimension of this strategic partnership in the realm of long-lasting security issues. However, even a single example would be enough to shed light on the nature of the political relationship. For instance, Armenia has long been a partner of former Soviet Russia while Turkey is a vital partner of the US. However, Turkey has been struggling to cope with Armenia -- not in Russia, but in the US. As a matter of fact, Turkey spends billions of dollars every year in lobbying to counteract Armenian lobbies and thereby prevent US presidents from using the term “genocide” when describing the unfortunate clashes at the beginning of the 19th century between the different subjects of the Ottoman Empire, including Turks, Kurds and Armenians, at a time when the entire empire was in the process of collapsing and affairs were beyond the empire's control. It seems like there is no end to this economy of “genocide bribery.”
Let me switch focus and confine my article to the economy. According the website of the Economy Ministry, the US is currently one of Turkey's largest trading partners in the world. This statement is simply not correct. Turkey's share in US exports is currently just 0.67 percent and is the US's 28th biggest trading partner. On the other hand, the share of Turkish exports in total US imports is just 0.24 percent and thereby ranks 48th. Thus, in terms of both imports and exports, Turkey could be ignored in US foreign trade.
What is the significance of the US in Turkey's foreign trade? Turkish exports to the US in 2010 were just 1.8 percent of its total exports at $3 billion. Finally, the share of the US in Turkey's total imports is above 6 percent.
However, it should be noted that among US exports to Turkey, worth $13 billion, items pertaining to defense are not included. These are not transparent and remain unannounced. However, considering that Turkey is the 14th-largest importer of defense equipment in the world and makes a majority of such purchases from the US, this means that the balance of economic relations is worse than is observed in the direct trade statistics.
What is worse is that bilateral trade relations are shifting further and further from Turkey's favor as time passes. For instance, just a decade ago, Turkey's exports to and imports from the US (excluding military trade) were balanced. However, as of 2011, in a four-fold rise, US exports to Turkey rose to $13 billion, whereas US imports from Turkey have remained at almost the same level.
This overwhelmingly asymmetric dependence on the US has been increasing since the visit of US President Barack Obama to Turkey in April 2009. It is quite interesting to note that President Obama noted with a bold statement that Turkey and the US, as strategic partners, had decided to build a “model partnership,” enabling them to form mechanisms to further bilateral economic and commercial relations.
What is happening? Can Turkey change this unsustainable relationship? I will discuss these issues in my next column. |
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