"Service" to a friend as a state foreign policy

In May, a man named Ismail Terlemez was arrested in Belgium as part of a corruption investigation led by FBI agents and the U.S. Department of Defense’s Criminal Investigation Branch. The indictment alleged that Terlemez, who worked at NATO’s procurement office in Brussels, accepted bribes from accomplices in 2019 and 2020 as part of a scheme to rig bids for NATO contracts. Investigators were confident they had solid evidence against Terlemez, who is a Turkish citizen.

However, in July, the US Department of Justice announced that it was dropping all charges against Terlemez, who had since left NATO and founded a well-connected Turkish defense company, and he was released. There is no direct evidence that the decision was politically motivated, but its timing has struck many as suspicious. The Justice Department’s decision came just two weeks after US President Donald Trump met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the NATO summit in The Hague.

It’s not hard to imagine Trump deciding to do his friend Erdogan a favor. True, Washington and Ankara have had their share of spats in recent years, sometimes over contentious trade issues. But the two leaders actually have a lot in common. Both like to mix business and politics, often involving members of their own families. Trump has a son-in-law, Jared Kushner; Erdogan’s son-in-law, Berat Albayrak, like Kushner, is a living example of a conflict of interest and even held a government position for a time. Trump wants to build a new White House ballroom using donations from his political supporters; Erdogan has built himself a monumental presidential palace, which has also been controversial because of the way it was financed.

Like Trump, Erdogan has been showering his opponents with lawsuits, accusations of treason, and demagogic social media posts. “Whenever they have a problem with Erdogan, they ask me to call him because they can’t talk to him,” Trump said in a recent interview with Politico, without specifying who he meant by “they.” “He’s a tough nut to crack. I actually like him a lot. I think he’s built, you know, a strong country, a strong military.” Forget human rights. Who wouldn’t do a favor for a man like that?

We have seen many instances so far in which the Trump administration has been willing to accommodate its friends abroad - including, most notably, the pardon of the former president of Honduras, who was convicted of smuggling 400 tons of cocaine into the United States, at a time when Washington is waging a war against alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers.

It is also notable that several high-profile pardons and dismissals involving Americans, including outgoing New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar from Texas, have also been linked to foreign influence-peddling. (Cuellar and his wife were indicted last year on charges of accepting money from organizations and individuals linked to the Azerbaijani government, while Adams was accused of accepting illegal gifts from Turkish officials.)

Trump’s tolerance of cross-border clientelism has family roots. Two of his sons are actively involved in business ventures, from real estate to cryptocurrency, that directly involve Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. His son-in-law’s investment fund, Affinity Partners, notoriously received $2 billion from the Saudis, who are now financing his attempt to help Paramount in its hostile takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Analysts sometimes equate Trump with Putin, but the Russian dictator is actually drastically different. For Putin, economic issues take a back seat to his geopolitical imperatives.

The rules that have long dictated how presidents should treat their own business interests while in office now seem almost naive. Trump has swept them all aside. The Trump Organization, which manages the family’s investments, pledged in January not to do business with foreign governments, but has effectively dropped any restrictions on working with private entities abroad. Forbes magazine estimates that Trump has earned about $3 billion since returning to power. (It is not certain whether that figure includes the Boeing 747 that the Qataris gifted Trump.) Much of that money can be traced back to his close ties to the Gulf states.

It’s not just about the money. Trump seems to particularly sympathize with the Gulf monarchies, probably because, like him, they don’t care about those “fine” distinctions between public and private assets. Everything stays within the family circle. Rulers like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman can do whatever they want with state assets; no one will hold them accountable. The crown prince famously bypassed the board of directors of his kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund to approve a huge investment in Kushner’s fund—probably because he figured it would give him privileged access to a future U.S. administration.

It turned out to be a good bet. The crown prince’s visit to Washington in mid-November brought lavish promises of investment in the American economy, estimated by the actors themselves to be approaching a billion dollars. In return, the Saudis were promised the delivery of the coveted F-35 fighter jets, without a word about their disastrous human rights record.

And this is how the administration justifies its close relationships with business partners abroad: everything the president does, officials claim, is in the public interest.

White House spokeswoman Carolyn Levitt responded a few months ago when reporters asked her about the administration’s apparent conflicts of interest in dealing with Gulf countries. “I think it’s ridiculous, frankly, that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own personal gain,” she said. “He left a life of luxury and running a hugely successful real estate empire for public service, not once, but twice.” Trump, she said, “actually lost money by being president.” If that was ever true, it certainly isn’t the case today.

The administration's recently released national security strategy puts economic concerns at the forefront - with barely any mention of democracy or human rights. Contrary to the administration's claims that such goals have previously been neglected, helping American companies conquer new markets has almost always been a foreign policy goal of the United States - as it is for most other countries.

The question is, however, by what means. This administration has broken with decades of established practice when it comes to fighting corruption - for example, by suspending the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which was established to prevent American companies from engaging in bribery and corruption in their foreign business dealings. The reasons for this policy were clear: corruption carries risks. It undermines accountability, encourages inefficiency, and imposes higher costs on taxpayers (for example, when bribed public procurement officials favor higher-priced bids). It also encourages other forms of crime (such as those promoted by the former president of Honduras). It prevents transparency and honest bookkeeping (see the Enron case).

However, there are special risks when the logic of “pay and play” is applied to foreign policy. While your friends may agree to such a game, cunning adversaries can use your greed against you.

We see this dynamic at work in the administration’s utterly naive and blinded dealings with the Kremlin. Moscow has cleverly changed tack, appointing Kirill Dmitriev, an investment banker with a Harvard MBA, as the chief contact with Steve Witkoff—the former real estate magnate who is acting as Trump’s chief envoy for the Russia-Ukraine war. Russian President Vladimir Putin, a KGB-trained manipulator, is performing a masterclass in diplomatic seduction, playing on the envoy’s romantic notion that profit trumps all else. Recently, Witkoff (whose sons are also busy cashing in on his new status) has been joined at the negotiating table by Kushner, an equally passionate advocate of the utopian idea that economic stimulus can solve all international misunderstandings.

Analysts sometimes equate Trump with Putin, but the Russian dictator is actually drastically different. For Putin, economic issues are secondary to his geopolitical imperatives. He did not launch a war against Ukraine to enrich oligarchs; he believes with all his being that it is his destiny to restore the Russian Empire. This is a man on a messianic mission, who consciously decided to invade his southwestern neighbor and who, so far, no one has convinced him to stop. But he has “read” Trump and Vitkoff very accurately and knows that they are attracted by the opportunity to cash in on Russia’s vast natural resources. That is why, as the Wall Street Journal recently documented in detail in a striking investigative piece, he is offering them exactly that.

Maybe Trump, Witkoff, and the rest will realize their mistake one day. But it's more likely that they will continue to be blinded by dollar signs. Unfortunately, everyone else will eventually pay the bill.

Translation: NB