(Bloomberg) -- Terms of Trade is a daily newsletter that untangles a world embroiled in trade wars. Sign up here. President
Donald Trump said he’ll discuss a trade deal with Turkey’s President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a
White House meeting on Wednesday.The deal could expand trade “very significantly” between the two countries, from about $20 billion to as much as $100 billion, Trump said. He called Erdogan, a pariah in much of
Washington after his military offensive into Kurdish-held territory in
Syria last month, a “good friend.”“We think that number should be easily $100 billion, which would be great for
Turkey and good for us,” Trump told reporters. “So we’re going to be expanding.” U.S. lawmakers in both parties had urged Trump not to host the
Turkish leader at the White House following the offensive, which targeted
American Kurdish allies who helped to defeat Islamic State.Trump threatened to sanction Turkey last month after its Syria incursion, which followed a telephone call with Erdogan in which the American president agreed to withdraw U.S. forces from a region near Turkey’s border. Members of
Congress in both parties have criticized Trump for the decision, which they say effectively green-lit Turkey’s offensive.The
sanctions would have raised steel
tariffs on Turkey back to 50%, the level before a reduction in May, and the U.S. would halt negotiations over a trade pact, Trump said in a statement at the time. The administration would also sanction the Turkish ministers of defense, energy and the interior, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had said.Trump agreed to hold off on the sanctions after a cease-fire that required the
Kurds to abandon the border region.(Updates with Trump comment in third paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Jordan Fabian in
New York at jfabian6@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin BlumFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.