Turkey to boycott US electronic products, Erdoğan says
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President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Tuesday that Turkey will impose a boycott against U.S. electronic products amid an ongoing and deepening rift between the two NATO allies over a number of issues.
Speaking at a symposium organized by the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) in the capital Ankara, Erdoğan said: “For each product we buy from abroad with foreign currencies, we will manufacture better ones and sell them abroad. We will implement a boycott on U.S. electronic products.”
“If they have iPhone’s, there is Samsung on the other side. We have Vestel in our own country. We will implement these,” he said.
Following Erdoğan’s speech, the shares of Turkish electronics producer Vestel trading in Borsa Istanbul (BIST) increased by as much as 7 percent amid an overall surge in benchmark BIST-100 Index by 1.1 percent.
Erdoğan reiterated the Turkish government’s view that the recent downturn in Turkish lira and stocks was caused by an attack by U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration.
“When they fail to make us what they want on the field, they don’t hesitate to use the economy as a weapon, just like diplomacy, just like military power, just like social and political instability,” Erdoğan said.
Trump authorized an increase in tariffs on Turkish aluminum and steel products on Aug. 10, while the U.S. also imposed sanctions on Turkish justice and interior ministers for their alleged role in the arrest American pastor Andrew Brunson, who is under arrest for his alleged links with PKK and Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ).
Turkish officials led by Erdoğan said that the increase in tariffs doesn’t comply with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, let alone the strategic partnership and alliance between the two countries. Turkey retaliated in kind to the sanctions on its ministers, although noting that these sanctions are meaningless.
The two countries are also at odds over their policy in Syria as the U.S. backs the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is dominated by the People’s Protection Forces (YPG), the armed wing of PKK terrorist group’s Syrian offshoot the Democratic Union Party (PYD). Turkey considers the control of regions in northern Syria by the SDF and the YPG a direct threat against its national security due to the ongoing conflict with the PKK since early 1980 that killed more than 40,000 people and cost billions to the country’s economy.
Fethullah Gülen, the leader of FETÖ group that launched the July 15, 2016 coup attempt killing 251 people and injured 2,200 others, also resides in U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Turkey repeatedly demanded Gülen’s extradition but the issue has not progressed so far.