‘They have been good to deal with’: Trump lauds US-Turkey relations & trade hours after vowing to obliterate its economy

Less than a day after threatening to “obliterate” Turkey’s economy if it does anything “off limits” in northern Syria against the Kurds, Donald Trump said that Ankara is actually a great trading partner and a trusted NATO ally.

The US president took to Twitter early on Tuesday in an apparent attempt to soften the hostile rhetoric he used against Turkey just hours before.

“So many people conveniently forget that Turkey is a big trading partner of the United States, in fact they make the structural steel frame for our F-35 Fighter Jet,” Trump wrote.

He also lauded relations between the two countries, bragging about their – and his own – achievements, stressing that Ankara is actually “an important member in good standing of NATO.”

“They have also been good to deal with, helping me to save many lives at Idlib Province, and returning, in very good health, at my request, Pastor Brunson, who had many years of a long prison term remaining,” Trump stated, ambiguously adding that “he is coming to the US” on November 13 – presumably referring to Turkey’s PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The new Twitter rant came less than a day after Trump vowed to “obliterate” Turkey’s economy if Ankara does something in northeastern Syria that he considers off-limits in his “great and unmatched wisdom.” The “obliteration” warning apparently required damage control, hence Trump’s rather unexpected praise of Ankara.

The decision to pull troops from northeastern Syria amid a looming Turkish operation against Kurdish-led militias was branded an open betrayal by his critics, so Trump also tried to ease tensions here, tweeting that he did not at all abandon Kurds.

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