Trump dominates Erdogan meeting – but manages to avoid disagreementpublished at 17:25 BST
Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from the White House
Image source, EPA/ShutterstockOf the many visits from foreign leaders we’ve had at the White House so far this term, that was perhaps the most one-sided Q+A we’ve seen.
Trump dominated, and answered nearly every question. Part of this may be that the quickfire, shouted questions of the press would have been likely difficult for Erdogan’s interpreter to catch and translate quickly.
On the other hand, Erdogan’s stance on most of the main topics of the day – Gaza and F-35 sales, for example – are clear, and already known.
Trump’s views, however, often shift, and ultimately the fate of the aircraft sales is unknown, even if Trump sounds optimistic.
So far, the meeting is by no means a bad outcome for Erdogan.
Trump was full of praise, and the two men managed to avoid any sort of disagreement in front of the world’s cameras, even if the two clearly have differing viewpoints on issues such as Gaza.
As we saw with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this year, an absolute worst case scenario would have been a contentious public spat.
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