He noted that the war in Ukraine has turned Erdogan into “indispensable to the West and, therefore, untouchable.”
The publication says that Turkey and Russia are competitors in the struggle for dominance in the Black Sea, and Ankara is not interested in Moscow owning additional ports or coastlines, so Turkey “silently helped arm Ukraine.”
At the same time, Türkiye did not join Western sanctions against the Russian Federation and received “huge profits” by buying Russian oil at a discount and acting as a transit point for Russian trade.
All this helped Erdogan domestically “during a period of tough measures” in the economy and against the background of the growing unpopularity of the president, Champion noted. As an example, he cites inflation, which from August 2022 to October 2025 decreased from 80% to 30%.
The author of the material also draws attention to the fact that the war in Ukraine and the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, which followed due to Moscow’s distraction to the war, helped Erdogan “mitigate the Kurdish problem” and “attract grateful votes from the Kurds” in the elections.
Bloomberg calls the “harsh truth” the need for the West to cooperate with Erdogan, because both Europe and the United States care about Turkey’s location and control over access to the Black Sea. In addition, they are interested in Turkey's large army, its developed and modern military industry, workforce and industrial base, important against the backdrop of “a stagnant, aging and high-cost economy in Europe.”
The publication, in particular, names a reduction in imports of Russian oil and natural gas and an order of Eurofighter fighter jets from Great Britain worth $10.5 billion as signs of Turkey’s rapprochement with the West.
Now “the West needs Turkey as much as Türkiye needs it,” the columnist believes. In his opinion, it is not Ankara that is turning to the West, but the West that is turning to Turkey.
The author recalls US President Donald Trump's good relationship with Erdogan, who likes strong leaders and with whom he shares “hostility to the old liberal order.”
Türkiye is becoming an increasingly important and influential geopolitical player and is capable of contributing to a “Trump victory” in regions such as Syria, Gaza, the Caucasus and others.
At the same time, Bloomberg writes that Erdogan is “destroying democracy and freedom of speech” in his homeland, and calls on Europe to support the Turkish opposition so that Erdogan does not turn Turkey “into a new Russia or Iran.”
