Time To Step Back From The Brink And Start Some Serious Negotiations

One of the amazing elements of the stormy debate over the collapse of the Turkish currency is just how much it is a dialogue of the deaf. On one side is the enraged, cornered Turkish president Tayyip Erdoğan whose only response the economic crisis enveloping his country is to cast the drama as yet another independence struggle against ravenous ‘imperialist’ powers determined to undermine Turkey’s emergence as a great power.

Currency speculators around the world smell blood in the water and are undoubtedly very active in Turkish Lira trades. But that is an effect, not the cause of the crisis. So far, the Turkish president has not uttered a word about the disastrous economic policies of the last several years that led to this collapse. But the speculators may have to wait a long time for the currency’s total collapse. One has to respect Erdoğan’s courage and resilience if not his economic acumen.

Like the Raging Bull  Erdogan may be battered but he is still standing

There is also not a word in the closely controlled Turkish media about the real crunch that local companies are facing because of the eroding currency. According to a report in The Financial Times some importers having trouble with shipments because suppliers are having difficulty pricing their goods. Prices of dollar-denominated Turkish bank bonds dropped like a stone sending their yields up sharply. And the debt repayment schedule looms larger and larger. In the next 12 months private non-financial institutions will have to repay or roll over $66 billion in foreign currency debt. For the banks alone that number is $76 billion. These repayments get even more difficult as hard-hit corporates struggle to repay their loans from Turkish banks. This could lead to a sharp increase in what’s politely called ‘non-performing loans’, i.e. loans that are not being repaid. The government will undoubtedly put pressure on the banks not to classify these loans as ‘non-performing’, but at a certain point the economic reality will disrupt that fantasy.

On the other side of the debate you have commentators in all the standard financial journals, social media, and television endlessly forecasting doom and gloom unless Turkey immediately adopts the typical IMF recipe of higher interest rates, curtailed lending, and sharply reduced government spending. Not a word from them about how demeaning this must seem to a country with great power pretensions like Turkey. Turkey is indeed a geo-politically significant country. And driving it into an embittered corner where it retreats into a sullen isolationist shell is to no one’s advantage. Suddenly the old saying ‘A Turk has no friends but a Turk’ looks more and more relevant to many Turks. I appreciate that Erdoğan is a hard person to sympathise with, but one has to realize that there are 80 million people in Turkey – about half of whom don’t like Erdoğan either. Whether they like Tayyip Erdoğan or not, however, they all deeply resent receiving lectures that are quickly interpreted as insults and infringement on their hard-won national sovereignty. The vast majority of Turks I know – no matter how ‘Western-oriented’ they may be --would rather suffer great economic pain and eat grass than submit to this type of behaviour.

And on top of this you have Donald Trump -- for whom the word nuanced simply does not exist. He much prefers the bludgeon to the scalpel, and doesn’t seem to care how much damage he causes – especially when there is a tricky election just over the horizon. Right now, he is using the power of the US dollar as the global reserve currency in an attempt to force people and countries to do what he wants. Yes, the dollar is a very powerful weapon. Yes, the vast majority of global trade is in dollars. Yes, most global commodities are priced in dollars. But, most important, perhaps, is ability of the United States to punish banks around the world by levying heavy fines for what the US Treasury deems inappropriate activity. Failure to pay the fines is essentially a death sentence for the banks because they can be shut out of the US financial system. Without access to the US financial system they could not any business in US dollars. Given the current dominance of the dollar in all aspects of global finance banks without access to the US financial system may as well shut their doors. Sooner or later some clever person will find a way around this dollar-domination, but at the moment it gives America a weapon more powerful than any nuclear bomb.

And this is precisely the weapon hanging over Turkey. One of Turkey’s major state banks – Halkbank – stands accused of violating the sanctions against Iran. The details of that sanctions busting were outlined in a colourful American trial involving one of the central characters in that scheme and an unfortunate executive of Halkbank who picked the wrong time to visit the United States. This executive was found guilty and now resides in a federal prison.

Testimony at this trial deeply implicated Halkbank in sanctions busting

No decision has been made yet on the amount of a fine that Halkbank could face. This is part of the negotiations involving the fate of an American evangelical pastor – and other Americans – held in Turkish prisons on unspecified charges of aiding an attempted coup in 2016.  The fine could be small and symbolic. Or it could be the multi-billons of dollars that other international banks have faced. A hefty fine of more than $5 billion would hurt Halkbank a great deal. What would be worse would be Erdoğan refusing to pay that fine because he considered it a violation of Turkish sovereignty. Then Halkbank could lose access to the US financial system. The knock-on effect of that is hard to predict – but it won’t be positive.

Will Trump pull this trigger? Will he sacrifice Turkey just to show how tough he is – or thinks he is? How would Erdoğan respond? Is there a chance that economic and political sanity might prevail? Unfortunately, it’s too early to tell.

This Is A Very Old Turkish Film With Perhaps A Different Ending

The Turkish people should be familiar with the currency crisis now rocking their country. It is not as if they haven’t seen this film before – lots of times. During the un-lamented 1990s the country was plagued with serial economically illiterate and incompetent governments while inflation soared and the currency melted like ice cream in July. After each bout of near-100% inflation whatever government was in charge – and there were many -- would sheepishly head for the IMF to arrange a bail-out. After pledging absolute obedience to the IMF rules the government would take the money, quickly forget its earlier pledges, and the merry-go-round would start again.

            Turkish merchants and businessmen are very clever indeed, and they quickly adapted their operations to the economic realities they faced. Many merchants and hotels simply gave up on the Turkish Lira and began pricing in dollars and Euros. This is still true. The standing joke was that the busiest person in a supermarket was the employee who had to run around the aisles adjusting prices.  Tourists used to marvel at becoming instant millionaires when they exchanged their hard currency for the pillow-soft Turkish Lira.

            This merry-go-round ended abruptly in 2001 when the currency and interest rates exploded out of control. By this time the people were well and truly fed up with the situation.  As soon as they got the chance they voted overwhelmingly for the Justice and Development Party (AKP) by itself to replace the hapless coalition governments that had disastrously mismanaged the economy.

Unfortunately, this chart of the USD/TL tells a very old story

             Now, after almost 17 years of relative stability under a single-party government the country finds itself paying the price for economic follies that had been covered up for years by the global environment of ultra-low interest rates and generous liquidity. Turkish companies loaded up on what was then cheap foreign currency debt, the country benefitted from low oil prices, and relatively cheaper imports began to replace domestic goods. Despite worries about a widening current account deficit the country did not have much trouble rolling over the roughly $250 billion in annual debt re-payments.

            That has all changed within the last year. Suddenly cracks appeared in what once seemed like Turkey’s strong economic foundation. Voices of concern about the country’s debt load grew louder, the current account deficit increased, oil prices began to rise (bad news for a country that has to import every drop of oil and every cubic meter of natural gas), inflation crept back into double digits, foreign direct investment dried up. The once-stable currency began to weaken, and those voices of concern grew louder. Finally, the hapless Central Bank screwed up the courage to raise interest rates. But not enough to support the currency.

            Just like the 1990s you say. Surely the IMF will ride to the rescue and save Turkey from the consequences of its government’s policies. Not at all. This time is truly different. Foreign commentators regularly opine on what the Turkish government should or must do to stem the rout of the currency. Using those words should or must - dripping with righteous condescension – with this particular Turkish government is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. What, you ask, is so different this time? Plenty.

            For openers, the structure of the Turkish government has changed from a parliamentary democracy to a presidential system where the president has supreme – and I mean supreme power. He alone makes all decisions. Ministers may have the power to order their own lunch, but that’s about all. And this president, Tayyip Erdoğan, is a supremely stubborn man with deep-seated – if very bizarre – views about the economy. For one thing, he hates interest rates and only very reluctantly allows the Central Bank to increase them. He has convinced himself – if no one else – that high interest rates create inflation. So much for classical economic theory. It’s also true that higher interest rates would hurt his heavily indebted economic allies in the construction business. But that’s another topic.

The son-in-law, and Finance Minister, tries to explain the unexplainable

            Furthermore, because Erdoğan or his henchmen control virtually every media outlet in Turkey there is very little – if anything -- in the local media about the seriousness of the economic crisis. Erdoğan has successfully changed the narrative from his economic incompetence to the insidious attempts by foreign interests, a.k.a. Americans and ‘Zionists’, to undermine Turkey. Local media love to report how their glorious leader is standing up to American pressure to release the unfortunate American pastor now incarcerated on unspecified, unverified charges of helping the 2016 coup plotters. Trump has played right into Erdoğan’s narrative by slapping additional sanctions on Turkey for failure to release Pastor Brunson who – not incidentally – belongs to the same evangelical wing of the church as Vice President Pence. Furthermore, Trump needs the evangelicals to stay with him for the upcoming mid-term elections.

Whatever happened to this once-cozy relationship?

            In short, it is inconceivable that Erdoğan would resort to the IMF for help in this crisis. To do so would mean admitting his earlier policy errors and undermine his narrative about foreign plots against Turkey. This would amount to an unbearable humiliation. In addition, the IMF would undoubtedly impose conditions that are an anathema to Erdoğan’s  ‘unique’ economic theories.

            So what happens now? First, he will thrash around and plead with the Russians, Chinese, Qatar and anyone else who will listen for assistance. The Russians can’t – or won’t -- do anything. The Chinese are much too intelligent to get caught in that mess. And I’m not sure that even Qatar wants to get that deeply entangled. Then he could print money and ignore the ensuing inflation. Or he could impose capital controls and/or force conversion of the foreign currency bank accounts into Turkish Lira. Both of these steps would cripple the economy and send it back to pre-1980s when the Turkish economy was essentially closed. But Erdoğan could justify these moves by saying the country is in an ‘economic war’ and he has to impose these measures for national defence. Enough people would buy that rationale to keep him in power. Just look at how long Maduro has remained in power in Venezuela despite the economic disaster there.

            Unlike 2001 there is not even the glimmer of political opposition to Erdoğan. The main opposition party CHP is busy eviscerating itself with internal feuds, and the nationalists are rallying around the flag. That leaves the Kurds, who are torn in several different directions. So Erdoğan is pretty much free to do what he wants. Unfortunately, the main losers will be the Turkish people who will suffer severe declines in income. But as long as Erdoğan can maintain the ‘evil foreigners’ narrative national pride will trump (as it were) economic realities.