Arab Growing Impatience with Erdogan

Official trade and economic relations between Turkey and the Gulf states were not severed even when the Turkish president attacked the decision by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt to boycott Qatar in 2017.

But Ankara then stepped up its relations with Qatar and established a military base there that caused a further deterioration in relations with the Quartet. Erdogan’s increased support of the Muslim Brotherhood and other militant groups working on destabilizing countries such as Egypt also soured relations further, especially with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

Yet, trade did not stop, and Turkey even benefitted from the Qatar crisis by acting as a transit point for Saudi goods to Qatar at the start of the boycott, though this later stopped. However, since the start of this year trade between Turkey and many Arab Gulf countries has declined by almost a quarter or between 17 and 30 per cent in the first nine months of the year.

The new popular boycott campaign is hurting Turkey even more. The statement from the Turkish business groups went on to say that “any official or unofficial initiative to block trade between the two countries [Saudi Arabia and Turkey] will have negative repercussions on our trade relations and be detrimental to the economies of both countries... We deeply regret the discriminatory treatment that our companies face in Saudi Arabia... and expect the Saudi authorities to take concrete initiatives to resolve the problem.”

When people see Erdogan bombing northern Iraq, occupying parts of Syria, and transferring terrorists to Libya, popular opposition to Turkey grows. These aggressive policies and direct support for terrorists are meant to destabilize the Arab countries, and they already threaten national security. The least people can do is to express their position by stopping buying Turkish products,” he added.

The campaign is also not only impacting Turkey, but is now also impacting multinationals that have production facilities in Turkey and markets in the Gulf. As one Gulf source said last week, “anything made in Turkey or coming through Turkey is not allowed in Saudi Arabia.”

The Spanish company Mango, one of a number of European and US fashion retailers with manufacturing facilities in Turkey, had said in a statement that its teams “are looking into alternatives to the slowing down of custom processes for products of Turkish origin in Saudi Arabia.”

Turkish exports to Saudi Arabia alone exceed $3.5 billion a year, while it imports less than $2 billion in goods from Saudi Arabia. The boycott will thus be hurting Turkey more than the Gulf countries, especially with the trend continuing and including more consumers of Turkish goods or services in the UAE, Bahrain and probably also Egypt and other countries.