The Daily Fuckup

By the time Trump sat down with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on July 13, 2019, the United States had already spent weeks trying to contain the damage from Ankara’s decision to buy Russia’s S-400 air-defense system. That purchase had set off alarms in Washington because it raised obvious questions about NATO cohesion, the security of sensitive military technology, and whether a member of the alliance could take delivery of a major Russian weapons system while still expecting full access to advanced U.S. defense programs. The most visible consequence had been the suspension of Turkey from the F-35 program, a step meant to underscore that the issue was not a routine disagreement but a serious breach of trust. In normal diplomatic practice, that kind of escalation calls for a steady message and disciplined follow-through. Under Trump, it instead became another test of how much policy could be bent around his instinct to keep a personal channel open to a strongman counterpart.

That instinct mattered because the dispute with Turkey was never just about one arms deal. It cut to the core of how the United States manages alliances and signals resolve to both friends and adversaries. The administration needed to show that there were consequences for choosing Russian military hardware over NATO confidence, and that those consequences would not be bargained away in a friendly meeting or softened because the foreign leader involved knew how to flatter Trump. But the president has long preferred diplomacy that looks and feels transactional, as if every strategic dispute can be reduced to a private negotiation in which he alone can claim victory. That approach might satisfy his self-image as a dealmaker, but it leaves allies unsure whether U.S. commitments are durable or merely improvisational. When the White House speaks in that register, it invites everyone else to wait for the next mood swing rather than plan around a clear policy line.

The optics on July 13 only made the problem more obvious. Trump was still publicly projecting confidence, but his posture toward Erdogan suggested a willingness to blur the boundaries that Washington had just tried to draw. That was politically convenient for a president who likes to present himself as uniquely capable of getting along with tough leaders, but it was also exactly the kind of signal that can erode leverage before the real negotiations even begin. If the point of suspending Turkey from the F-35 program was to demonstrate that there were real costs for the S-400 purchase, then the administration needed consistency, not ambiguity. Instead, Trump’s style encouraged the opposite impression: that the consequences might be negotiable if Erdogan could secure the right mix of praise, attention, and personal chemistry. For hawks inside and outside government, that looked less like strategy than weakness dressed up as toughness. The danger was not simply that Trump wanted to avoid a rupture; it was that he seemed unable or unwilling to distinguish between avoiding a rupture and surrendering the leverage that made a rupture meaningful.

That distinction is what made the episode so frustrating to critics. Turkey was not a marginal issue, and the concerns were not abstract. Members of Congress from both parties had already expressed alarm about the risks created by the S-400 purchase, particularly the possibility that Russian hardware could compromise information about the F-35 and weaken confidence in the integrity of NATO systems. The administration had a narrow but important task: make clear that buying into Moscow’s defense ecosystem would carry consequences that could not be washed away by a warm handshake in the Oval Office or a flattering line in a press availability. Instead, Trump’s approach suggested that the best way to handle the standoff was to keep the relationship personally pliable and hope that access itself would function as leverage. But leverage only works if the other side believes the consequences are real and will be applied consistently. If the president signals that he values the appearance of a good relationship more than the enforcement of a hard rule, then the other side has every reason to keep pressing. That is how a leverage problem becomes a credibility problem, and a credibility problem becomes a broader foreign policy liability.

By mid-July, the Turkey dispute had become a neat illustration of a recurring Trump pattern: the White House could sound firm when speaking in generalities, but wobble when confronted with the specifics of a relationship he found personally appealing. That pattern left the administration vulnerable to charges that it undercut its own advisers and confused tactical friendliness with strategic judgment. It also fed a larger concern about how authoritarian-leaning leaders are treated when they come into Trump’s orbit. They often receive the benefits of his personal attention, while the institutions responsible for discipline and consistency are pushed to the side or forced to explain away contradictions after the fact. In that sense, the Turkey episode was about more than diplomacy with Ankara. It was a test of whether the president could sustain a coherent position when the foreign leader across the table was exactly the kind of interlocutor he seemed most eager to impress. On that day, the answer looked uncomfortably familiar. The United States projected pressure in theory, uncertainty in practice, and a willingness to let a risky ally believe the rules might still be up for grabs.