Turkey’s currency, the lira, has plunged more than 20 percent against the U.S. dollar in the last two weeks and over 40 percent since the beginning of the year. The crisis is driven by sharpening contradictions between Turkish and U.S. bosses as the post-World War II order disintegrates. In the face of the U.S. rulers’ weakening grip, Turkey is moving closer to Russia. In response, U.S. President Donald Trump has used the arrest of an American evangelical pastor, Andrew Brunson, as an excuse to raise tariffs on Turkish goods and further pressure the lira by sowing doubts about the stability of the Turkish economy.
While U.S. imperialism stands in relative decline versus a rising China and resurgent Russia, it will never give up its empire without an all-out global fight. History shows that trade wars inevitably lead to shooting wars. The international working class, led by the Progressive Labor Party, must reject the bosses’ wars pitting workers against workers. Our class must fight for a communist society that serves the needs of the international working class.
Turkey’s Pivot to Russia
Turkey sits between Europe and the Middle East and is a crucial counterweight to Russian client Iran. It fields the second largest armed forces in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the military arm of U.S. geopolitical dominance for the last seven decades. Once a reliable ally of the U.S., Turkey has of late strained the partnership by focusing on its own national interest and pivoting toward Russia. Within the last two years, according to Stratfor (8/12), Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has:

Arrested U.S. citizens as bargaining chips with Washington since the attempted coup against Erdogan’s government in July, 2016;
Purchased a Russian S-400 missile defense system;
Ignored U.S. sanctions against Iran, which Turkey depends on for fossil fuels;
Attacked U.S.-backed Kurdish militias in neighboring Syria.
The decay of U.S.-Turkey relations represents another sign of the U.S. bosses’ declining position in the Middle East and the growing instability and volatility of the period. Donald Trump’s economic sanctions—doubling tariffs on Turkish steel to 50 percent and on aluminum to 20 percent—have intensified the crisis, leading the defiant Erdogan to a counter-threat: “...Turkey has alternatives. Failures to reverse this trend of unilateralism and disrespect will require U.S to start looking for new friends and allies” (New York Times, 8/10).
No capitalist solutions for the working class
Due to a reliance on foreign currency and an inability to pay back its debt in U.S. dollars, the Turkish economy is vulnerable to attacks from the U.S. bosses. The falling value of the lira has severely hurt the savings, pensions, and paychecks of workers in Turkey. Annual inflation now stands at 15 percent and could soon rise even higher (NYT, 8/14).
Much like Trump, Erdogan has thrown out or marginalized professional Turkish economists and is running the economy for his own political future and survival. If Erdogan props up the lira by raising interest rates, fewer businesses could afford bank loans and Turkey’s growth rate would plummet, leading to even more unemployment.
If interest rates stay low and inflation gets even worse, workers’ wages—already inadequate for the necessities of life—will be worth even less. There are no capitalist solutions that serve the needs of the working class.
Adding to the volatility of the Turkish-U.S. conflict is the fact that both sets of bosses are under intense pressure, both internally and externally. To fend off opposing bosses who were jailed or ousted from the government after the failed coup, the Erdogan wing held snap elections that hurt the government’s legitimacy with many workers (Washington Post, 6/25). Now rising prices are being used by Erdogan’s competitors to unite an opposition movement.
U.S. decay paves the Way for war
While the relationship between the U.S. bosses and the Turkish ruling class continues to deteriorate, capitalists around the globe are sizing up the situation to improve their own positions. Iran continues to strengthen its oil-based ties with Turkey. Qatar came to Erdogan’s aid with a promise of $15 billion to back the lira. The announcement temporarily stabilized the currency and may open the door to investments from other powers: “That Turkish support for Qatar during the stand-off with Saudi Arabia finally paid off.…Let’s see if the Chinese and Russians put some money on the table” (Bloomberg, 8/15).
Turkey’s strategic location makes it a prime target for China’s One Belt, One Road Initiative. A China state publication backed the development of more projects on Turkish soil to exploit Erdogan’s rift with the U.S. (Global Times, 8/20).
We Don’t Warn of Peace
Turkey’s shift toward Iran and Russia is another sign of the decline of U.S. imperialism, which has been accelerated by Trump’s turn toward isolationism. Inter-imperialist rivalry is growing more volatile by the day. Sooner or later, one of these situations will spiral out of control and into massive global warfare. None of the capitalist bosses’ politicians—including the latest wave of “socialists” in the U.S. Democratic Party—can stop this historic inevitability toward chaos and destruction. The only way forward is to rely on the power of the international working class—and to develop a communist society based on the needs of the many, not the profits of the few. We can build a new world without racism, sexism, exploitation, or imperialist war. Join us!