Trump approves largest-ever aid package to Israel, sets up showdown with Turkey over F-35s
The $717 billion National Defense Authorization Act includes a bipartisan measure honoring a decade-long memorandum of understanding between America and Israel, giving $3.8 billion annually to the Jewish state, while also also temporarily blocking the U.S. delivery of the F-35 fighter jets to Turkey.
(August 13, 2018 / JNS) U.S. President Donald Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Monday, which includes $550 million in assistance to Israel and temporarily halts the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey. This comes amid tensions between the United States and Ankara, which is currently holding an American pastor hostage, among other political moves.
The $717 billion measure includes a bipartisan measure honoring a decade-long memorandum of understanding between America and Israel, with the United States giving $3.8 billion annually to the Jewish state.
The annual military blueprint also temporarily blocks the U.S. delivery of the F-35 fighter jets to Turkey in response to the detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson, whom the country accuses of participating in the failed 2016 coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an.
Earlier this month, the United States slapped sanctions on two top Turkish government officials involved in Brunson’s detention. The White House also placed aluminum and steel tariffs on Turkey, and Trump said last Friday that he approved a doubling of those tariffs. The tariffs and sanctions have caused Turkey’s currency, the lira, to crash.
Diliman Abdulkader, director of the Kurdish Project at the Endowment for Middle East Truth, helped advise lawmakers regarding the Turkey provision in the NDAA and supports the current U.S. measures against Turkey.
“The F-35 is a big step in basically telling Turkey you’re not too big to fail,” Abdulkader told JNS. “Yes, they are a NATO ally, but the United States is also concerned for its own national security interests, and based on the rhetoric coming from Erdo?an, he seems to be threatening not only NATO interests but the United States as well.”
“[The] United States must adapt to the reality that we are not dealing with the same Turkey as in the past. Turkey under Erdogan is aggressive and contradicts American interests both in Europe and in the Middle East,” said Abdulkader. “Therefore, we have to change our foreign policy accordingly that will further isolate and pressure Turkey. We have to keep in mind all of Turkey’s internal and external problems are the doing of the Turkish government themselves not the United States.”
Regarding U.S. sanctions and tariffs against Turkey, Abdulkader said that this pressure campaign cannot be limited to the country’s custody of Brunson.
“Erdo?an’s hostage-taking of Americans to gain diplomatic leverage is one of many violations he has committed,” he said. “There are countless of human-rights violations by Turkey that must be considered part of the equation, including Turkish threats against Americans in Syria, the Kurds and, most recently, an attempt to raid and arrest American officials in Incirlik Air Base” in the city of Adana, Turkey.
Bill to block access to international financial markets
Aykan Erdemir, who served in the Turkish parliament from 2011 to 2015 and serves as a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS that the relationship between America and Turkey goes beyond the F-35 jets.
The first issue on the U.S.-Turkish relationship is that as the bilateral crisis between the U.S. and Turkey deepens, the economic crisis gets worse,” he said.
“In the next few months to come, the more important question is Turkey’s bailout.”
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a bill last month that would block Turkish access to international financial resources, such as the International Monetary Fund.
Transferring the F-35s to Turkey would be “a concern,” Erdemir said, but it would be “a security matter, and the implications would not be immediate, whereas with the economic crisis and with access to international financial institutions, the consequences would be immediate because we’re talking week, if not, months.”
The NDAA will need an appropriations bill to fund it.
Such a measure already passed the Senate Appropriations Committee; its chairman, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), has been trying to get it on the chamber floor for a full vote in order to get it to the president before the fiscal year deadline at the end of September.
The House of Representatives passed its appropriations bill last month. Any bill from the upper chamber would need to be reconciled with the House in conference committee negotiations.