Trump-Erdogan detente a masterclass in transactional diplomacy

US President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s warming relations signal a return to pragmatic realism in US-Turkish relations, a welcome departure from the moralizing and ideologically-driven approach that has characterized much of Washington’s Middle East policy in recent decades.

Foreign policy establishment critics are predictably hand-wringing about Trump’s willingness to engage with an increasingly authoritarian leader who has cracked down on domestic opposition, pursued an independent foreign policy that frequently conflicts with NATO interests and maintained complex relations with Russia and Iran.

But this pearl-clutching misses the fundamental point: Turkey remains a crucial player in a volatile region and alienating Ankara serves no American strategic interest.

Limits of lecturing

The Obama and Biden administrations’ approach to Turkey—combining tepid engagement with periodic lectures about democratic backsliding and human rights—achieved precisely nothing except pushing Erdogan further away from Washington and closer to Moscow.

The fantasy that American hectoring would somehow transform Turkey into a Jeffersonian democracy was always delusional, rooted more in the hubris of liberal internationalism than in any serious understanding of Turkish politics or regional realities.

Trump, by contrast, understands something that the foreign policy blob refuses to acknowledge: international relations are fundamentally transactional, and America’s interests are better served by dealing with the world as it is rather than as we wish it to be.

The Trump-Erdogan relationship, whatever its personal dimensions, rests on several areas of genuine strategic convergence.

Both leaders are skeptical of open-ended military commitments in the Middle East. Both recognize that the Kurdish issue in Syria is more complex than the Washington narrative of “heroic freedom fighters” allows.

Both understand that Turkey’s geographical position—controlling access to the Black Sea, bordering Iran, Iraq and Syria—makes Ankara an indispensable player in regional security arrangements.

The previous administration’s policy of simultaneously depending on Turkey as a NATO ally while supporting Kurdish forces that Ankara views as existential threats was strategically incoherent.

Trump’s willingness to acknowledge Turkish security concerns regarding the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and its People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia offshoot, however unpopular in Washington, at least had the virtue of recognizing reality.

None of this requires romanticizing Erdogan’s domestic policies or pretending that US-Turkish interests align perfectly.

Turkey will continue to pursue its own regional ambitions, maintain its relationship with Russia when it suits Ankara’s purposes and resist American pressure on issues where it perceives core interests are at stake.

But this is precisely the point: a mature foreign policy accepts that allies can disagree, that cooperation on some issues doesn’t require lockstep alignment on others and that maintaining working relationships with imperfect partners is preferable to the alternative of frozen relations and diplomatic isolation.

The question Washington should ask is not whether Erdogan meets US standards of democratic governance—he clearly doesn’t—but whether engaging with Turkey advances concrete American interests.

Turkey’s role in maintaining NATO’s southern flank, managing refugee flows from the Middle East and securing cooperation on counterterrorism all do. So does ensuring that Ankara doesn’t drift permanently into an anti-Western alignment.

Beyond ideology

The improving Trump-Erdogan relationship exemplifies what a less ideological, more interest-based foreign policy might look like.

It prioritizes practical cooperation over moral grandstanding, accepts the limits of American influence and recognizes that diplomatic engagement is a tool for managing relationships with rivals and difficult partners, not a reward granted only to regimes that pass Washington’s political correctness tests.

This approach won’t satisfy those who believe American foreign policy should serve primarily as an instrument of democracy promotion and human rights enforcement.

But for those of us who believe the primary purpose of US diplomacy is to advance concrete national interests while avoiding unnecessary conflicts, the Trump-Erdogan detente—transactional, unsentimental and realistic—offers a model worth defending.

The alternative—moral posturing combined with strategic incoherence—has been tried. And the results speak for themselves.

Leon Hadar is a foreign policy analyst and author of “Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East.”