Part of the reason for President Donald Trump’s deference to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is Trump’s belief that Erdoğan is strong and can be a useful partner who will impose order. If that means sacrificing the Kurds, sacrificing Armenian and Syrian Christians, or putting up with a little Erdoğan terrorist sponsorship in Gaza, Syria, or Somalia, so be it. For Trump, reducing the expense and exposure of American forces abroad is worth the moral price.
Increasingly, however, it appears Erdoğan seeks to play Trump for a fool.
Take, for example, Erdoğan’s desire to buy the F-35 Joint-Strike Fighter. There is not a single military purchase Turkey has made from the United States or Europe over the past 15 years that Turkey has not sought to reverse engineer to the benefit of its own military industries. In this way, Erdoğan seeks to bolster Turkey’s power and his own portfolio. In 2016, he had his daughter, Sümeyye, married to Selçuk Bayraktar, chief technology officer and chairman of the board of Baykar Defense, Turkey’s leading drone manufacturer.
Now, Erdoğan is also seeking Turkish commercial advantage at the expense of American companies. Turkey has long sought leadership in Somalia. It controls the international airport within whose perimeter the State Department bases the U.S. Embassy, and Turkey has also built a naval base. Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is as much a Turkish proxy as Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
On April 12, Somalia Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre visited Las Anod, a Somaliland town Somalia conquered in 2023 with Chinese assistance, as Beijing sought to punish Somaliland for siding with the U.S. and Taiwan rather than China. The move is provocative; while Somalia can speak of Las Anod as disputed territory, the border between Somalia and Somaliland was set by treaty during the 19th century and recognized by the U.S. and every other permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Somalia sending its prime minister to the town is akin to the U.S. president visiting Vancouver or Toronto while pretending both are U.S. cities.
Barre’s visit is more than provoking Somaliland; it is about lining Erdoğan’s pockets at the expense of the U.S. In October 2024, the state-owned Turkish Petroleum Corporation signed an agreement with Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, for rights to land-based fields. One of Barre’s primary drivers is to transfer the Holhol oil exploration bloc near Las Anod, which Houston-based ConocoPhillips previously owned. By supporting Somali claims over Somaliland, Erdoğan seeks to replace American oil interests with Turkish firms because he thinks he is smarter than Trump and can get away with using him to “Make the Ottomans Great Again.”
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Somalia is not the only location where Erdoğan seeks to roll Trump. Erdoğan does not altruistically wish to stabilize Syria; instead, he views self-appointed President al-Sharaa as an investment he is now cashing in. Not only does Erdoğan stand to gain billions of dollars worth of contracts as al-Sharaa funnels them to Erdoğan and away from American companies, but he also can use his puppet in Syria to expand maritime claims further and undermine American gas interests in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Trump is correct in putting American interests first and recognizing that true influence comes with business prowess, not U.S. Agency for International Development-style largesse. Where his administration goes wrong, though, is believing Erdoğan is a partner. Erdoğan will talk to Trump about how he can help the U.S. while he fleeces Americans and disparages Trump. If Trump does not wake up to this reality, American firms will lose billions.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.