Turkey’s Recent Balance-of-Power Strategy

Erdogan’s September 2025 White House Visit:

Its Impact on Turkey’s Recent Balance-of-Power Strategy

On September 25, 2025, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited U.S. president Donald J. Trump in the White House for the first time since his controversial stop there on November 13, 2019. During that earlier visit, Erdogan’s guards attacked protesters in front of the Turkish Embassy near Dupont Circle, among other mishaps. Subsequently, a scheduled Erdogan visit to then-U.S. President Joseph R. Biden on May 9, 2024, was canceled. 

Erdogan’s latest visit apparently proved more successful although it was not without its controversies involving supposed insults concerning the Turkish president’s “begging” for “legitimacy,” seeking to lift U.S. sanctions involving Turkey’s earlier purchase of Russian S-400 air defense missiles and lost access to the latest U.S. F-35 stealth jet fighters, Turkish concessions on a major Boeing aircraft purchase from the United States, and Trump pressure on Ankara to reduce significant energy dependency on Moscow, among others. 

Thus, the current Trump-Erdogan get-together illustrated a return to pragmatic, transactional relations between the two driven by their personal rapport and supposed mutual tough-guy admiration. The visit also emphasized Erdogan’s continuing balancing act between his NATO alliance with the West on the one hand, and paradoxically close relations with Russia, China, Islamic states, and BRICs members on the other hand. In brief, Turkey maintains credible dialogue with Russia, Ukraine, NATO, and Iran. Although the visit was presented domestically as a diplomatic win for the Turkish leader, some viewed the result as more mixed and even a potential loss for Ankara. 

Overall, however, the meeting went smoothly because Erdogan had already expressed his toughest criticisms of the United States regarding Israel, Gaza, and Hamas as well as his links with Russia to the UN General Assembly a few days earlier and left any further discussion between top-level advisors as well as for his interview with FOX News two days earlier. Thus, Trump was left to welcome his supposed tough-guy friend Erdogan with praise for his strong leadership at home and in the Middle East including Syria. It was a friendly White House meeting with Trump that could be played domestically in Turkey like an important acceptance and win. 

Nevertheless, Trump still delivered an ironic rebuke over Turkey’s “rigged elections,” regret over Ankara’s purchase of Russian oil in seeming violation of economic sanctions regarding the Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) regarding Russia’s war against Ukraine, talks about large U.S.-Turkey deals involving aircraft, a nuclear power plant that would signal an alternative to Russia’s dominant role in Turkey’s energy sector through its Akkuya nuclear plant, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies. 

From the European point of view, these discussions illustrated continuing U.S-Turkish relations despite Turkey’s degraded rule of law under Erdogan as well as its “unfriendly” takeover of Syria and similar plans for the Syrian Kurds, a once-U.S. ally, through Turkish “proxies.” Trump also ignored Erdogan’s continuing incarceration of his main CHP rival Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and business executive Osman Kavala, still jailed for his supposed violent support of Erdogan opponents during the 2013 Gezi Park riots against the government. Such developments will undoubtedly further divide the United States from its other European allies as Trump continues to implement his own legal actions against his perceived domestic enemies such as former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, among others.

However, controversy arose when Turkish opposition politicians urged Erdogan to push back against U.S. secretary of state Marco Rubio’s statement that world leaders including Erdogan were ‘begging” to meet with Trump. Rubio had made the statement after Erdogan declared in his FOX interview that Trump had failed to deliver on his promises to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. “Using the word ‘begging’ with reference to the Republic of Turkey is a breach of diplomatic courtesy and absolutely unacceptable,” replied Oguz Kaan Salici, an MP form the main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP). Continuing, the Turkish opposition figure added, “If Erdogan remains silent, this will go down as a second ‘Don’t be a fool’ scandal.” The reference was to an insulting letter that Trump had send to Erdogan warning the Turkish leader against an incursion into Syria during Trump’s first term in office. In addition, former Turkish prime minister and at one time close ally of Erdogan before their breakup, Ahmet Davutoglu, accused Rubio of arrogance. “The Turkish president does not beg anyone for a meeting,” he added. 

Tom Barrack, Trump’s longtime personal business friend and now ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria, publicly declared that Trump’s goal was to give Erdogan “legitimacy” by inviting him to the White House. Barrack went on to mention the long-standing issues between the United States and Turkey already mentioned above plus the Turkish state-owned Halkbank which is facing prosecution in the United States for allegedly helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions. Again, this reputed Trumpian granting of “legitimacy” to Erdogan, did not play well in Turkey.

However, all this seemed very minor and even irrelevant, when Trump subsequently credited Erdogan with helping him arrange his peace initiative for Gaza. In a phone call to the U.S. president, Erdogan advised that Israel’s halting of attacks in Gaza was “crucial” for any successful peace initiative. The Turkish president went on to emphasize that further Israeli military operations undermined such efforts and that he “shared understanding” with Trump over how to implement a Gazan peace. Turkish media reported that Erdogan had urged Israel to “immediately cease” attacks and comply with Trump’s ceasefire proposals. 

In summary, Turkey welcomed Turkey’s ceasefire agreement, would monitor its implementation, and even join the “task force” overseeing it. Turkey would also join the United States, Israel, Qatar, and Egypt to locate the bodies of the dead hostages.  Given Erdogan’s earlier diplomatic efforts to mediate the Ukrainian conflict, his latest overtures in Gaza might join him to Trump’s campaign to win a future Nobel Peace Prize for both of them! 

Michael M. Gunter is a professor of political science at Tennessee Tech University and the author of Erdogan’s Path to Authoritarianism: The Continuing Journey (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2024).