President Trump vows economic sanctions on Turkey

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Monday he would authorize economic sanctions against Turkish leaders “and any persons contributing to the destabilizing actions in northeast Syria,” even as he stuck by his decision to remove U.S. troops from northeast Syria.

Trump talked to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at Erdogan’s request. After a meeting of principals on the situation, Vice President Mike Pence told reporters that Trump told the Turkish leader “the United States of America wants Turkey to stop the invasion.”

Pence also said that he and National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien would travel to the region to mediate between the parties.

In the sanctions statement, Trump also said he would leave U.S. troops in southern Syria as “a small footprint” designed to “prevent a repeat of 2014, when the neglected threat of ISIS raged across Syria and Iraq.”

It was an announcement not unlike the message delivered Friday in the White House briefing room in which Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, told reporters that Trump would sign an executive order authorizing sanctions.

It was not until Monday evening that the administration released the order “blocking property and suspending entry of certain persons contributing to the situation in Syria.”

Kurds turn toward Syria

Both statements followed intense criticism from Republicans and Democrats in Congress who accused Trump of abandoning Kurdish forces key to defeating ISIS by giving Erdogan a green light to invade Syria during a phone conversation on Oct. 6.

The Kurds, for their part, joined forces with troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“If (Russian President Vladimir) Putin could write the script it would go: - U.S. lets Turks slaughter Kurds, pushing Kurds closer to Assad/Russia – U.S. then panics and sanctions Turkey splintering NATO & solidifying Russia/Iran/Turkey axis,” tweeted Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., “But Putin didn’t have to write it. Trump & GOP did it for him.”

If Putin could write the script it would go:

- U.S. lets Turks slaughter Kurds, pushing Kurds closer to Assad/Russia

- U.S. then panics and sanctions Turkey, splintering NATO & solidifying Russia/Iran/Turkey axis.

But Putin didn’t have to write it. Trump & GOP did it for him.

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) October 14, 2019

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recalled his support for legislation that warned against leaving Syria or Afghanistan prematurely.

“For years, the United States and our Syrian Kurdish partners have fought heroically to corner ISIS and destroy its physical caliphate,” McConnell said. “Abandoning this fight now and withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria would re-create the very conditions that we have worked hard to destroy and invite the resurgence of ISIS.”

In 2017 and 2018, Trump ordered military air strikes in Syria to retaliate against Assad’s apparent use of chemical weapons against his own people.

The 2017 strike gave Trump a signature moment that signaled a different approach to the practice of diplomacy. Trump told Chinese President Xi Jinping about the bombing, he later recalled, over “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake you’ve ever seen” over dinner at his “winter White House,” Mar-a-Lago.

Unilateral invasion

The administration denies that Trump had given a nod to Ankara’s incursion.

“Despite the opposition and repeated warnings from the United States and the international community (Erdogan) ordered a unilateral invasion of northern Syria that has result in widespread casualties, refugees, destruction, insecurity and a growing threat to U.S. military forces,” said Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

That action, Esper asserted, presented “unacceptable” risk to U.S. troops, which is the reason Trump directed the Pentagon to withdraw U.S. troops from northeast Syria.

On Fox News Sunday, Esper said he saw the the transcontinental nation “spinning out of the Western orbit, if you will. We see them purchasing Russian arms, cuddling up to President Putin. We see them doing all these things that, frankly, concern us.”

Before the Trump order was released, Kilic Burga Kanat, research director for the Turkish think tank SETA, told the Review-Journal from Turkey that he didn’t expect any sanctions to have much of an effect.

“Not a lot of Turkish officials have assets in the United States,” said Kanat, adding that “the implications in terms of public opinion would be serious in Turkey.”

In a statement, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who was there for Trump’s telephone call with Erdogan, said, “Trump gave Turkey the ability to undo the strategic damage that they have already caused in a win-win fashion.”

U.S. ‘extremely unreliable’

But Aykan Erdemir, a former Turkish lawmaker now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, voiced the belief held by many in in the international community, that the United States “lost your foothold in the region.”

If Washington wants to regain that traction, Erdemir warned, “you will have to do this relatively alone because none of the state and non-state actors in the region would be likely to trust you and work with you because you have just proven yourself to be extremely unreliable.”

Max Hoffman, a senior fellow for the Center for American Progress who specializes in Turkey, offered said one of the most “shocking” aspects of Trump’s initial decision to pull some 50-100 U.S. troops out of harm’s way was the lack of a “detailed contingency plan.”

Hoffman cited Trump’s failure to impose penalties under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act for Turkey’s purchase of Russian missiles as evidence that Trump never quite understood the threats posed by Ankara and Moscow.

On “Fox and Friends” Monday morning, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the highest ranking Republican woman in the House, blamed impeachment for the attack’s timing. “It was not an accident that the Turks chose this moment to roll across the border,” Cheney argued. “The Democrats have got to pay very careful attention to the damage they’re doing with the impeachment proceedings.”

Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders on Twitter.