Trump's Real Target With Erdogan Is the Hormuz Bypass, Not the F-35
Strip away the flattery and the F-35 headlines from this week’s Ankara summit, and a narrower, more concrete objective sits underneath everything Trump is offering Erdogan: unblocking the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline. The jet talk is the part that makes headlines. The pipeline is the part that actually protects Trump from a repeat of the Hormuz shock that nearly cost him the midterms.
The blockade Trump cannot afford to relive
Iran’s closure of the Strait at the outset of the February war sent oil prices spiking more than 70 percent, and the fear of that blockade dragging into November is what pushed Trump toward a ceasefire in the first place. That episode taught the White House a hard lesson about how directly Hormuz disruption translates into gasoline prices, economic sentiment, and midterm outcomes. Every overland route that can move Iraqi or Gulf crude to market without transiting the Strait is now a piece of political insurance, and Turkey sits astride the most important one still stuck in neutral: the Kirkuk-Ceyhan line to the Mediterranean, stalled by an unresolved agreement with Ankara.
Why Erdogan is the one man who can unstick it
Reactivated capacity on Kirkuk-Ceyhan currently sits well below what the corridor could carry, and the holdup is entirely diplomatic rather than technical. Erdogan controls the terms of that agreement, and he knows it. Securing Trump’s attendance at the NATO summit through a personal appeal was leverage Erdogan spent skillfully, but the pipeline is the leverage that matters most going forward, since it gives Ankara a lasting claim on Washington’s attention for as long as the Hormuz risk remains live. That is the transaction actually being negotiated in Ankara this week, dressed up in the language of alliance friendship.
Why the F-35 talk is the part least likely to land
The F-35 reinstatement, by contrast, runs into obstacles that goodwill cannot dissolve. The statutory bar tied to Turkey’s retention of the Russian S-400 system is still on the books, and nothing in the reporting suggests Ankara is prepared to give up that system. Congressional notification requirements and a real disapproval mechanism sit on top of that bar, backed by influential Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who have signaled they will fight it. The likelier outcome, consistent with reports of an informal letter exchange rather than a formal notification, is a political gesture that lets Erdogan claim a win at home without a single jet actually changing hands anytime soon.
Trump’s improvisational logic
None of this needs to be a coordinated master plan to make sense. Trump’s foreign policy style rewards whoever is in the room making the ask, and Erdogan has simply been the most effective solicitor of that attention this year. The F-110 engine sale, already pushed through over congressional objections, shows Trump is willing to spend real capital on Ankara. Floating the F-35 alongside it costs him nothing up front and buys goodwill instantly, while the pipeline concession is the piece he actually needs delivered before the next Hormuz crisis arrives. Trump is playing this by ear, trading a symbolic and possibly unrealizable jet promise for the one piece of hard infrastructure that directly reduces his exposure to Iran’s chokepoint leverage.
The read to watch for
If Kirkuk-Ceyhan capacity moves meaningfully higher in the coming months while the F-35 file stays stuck in congressional review, that will confirm which part of this relationship was ever the real objective. The jets make for a better headline. The pipeline is the trade Trump actually needs to close.