Trump administration imposes 20%-50% tariffs on Turkish imports due to a recent spat over the detention of an American pastor.

Apple Boston

2018-08-11 14:35:00 Sat ET

The Trump administration imposes 20%-50% tariffs on Turkish imports due to a recent spat over the detention of an American pastor, Andrew Brunson, in Turkey. Also, the Trump administration introduces new economic sanctions on ministers in President Recep Erdogan's government. As a result, the Turkish lira dramatically depreciates by more than 17% and causes investor concerns and worries about the shortage of foreign reserves in Turkey. The Turkish lira has lost 40% foreign exchange value against the greenback in the recent interim period from early-2018 to August 2018.

Despite 15% high inflation and both fiscal and current-account deficits, the Turkish central bank remains reluctant to raise the interest rate in order to support the weak currency. As the lira nosedives, the Turkish banking regulator puts restrictions on dollar-lira currency swaps to make it harder for offshore investors bet against the currency. The latest liquidity measures may provide some capital buffer to cushion the lira against speculative moves. In the absence of an outright orthodox interest rate hike, however, this strategy remains insufficient to provide complete protection for the lira in rare times of financial distress.

In response, President Erdogan states that Turkey will boycott American electronic products such as Apple's flagship iPhones. Moreover, the Erdogan administration imposes hefty retaliatory tariffs on key U.S. imports such as rice, coal, automobile, alcohol, and tobacco. These events push the Turkish economy toward a full-blown financial meltdown.

Turkey serves as a core international hub for shipping goods between Europe and Asia, African refugee inflows to Germany and other parts of Europe, and China's Belt-and-Road economic program. In many ways, the recent Turkish lira crisis is quite similar to the Asian financial crisis back in 1997, the Argentine peso crisis in 1998, and the more recent Russian ruble crisis in 2014.

When Turkey fails to fly, many European and Asian emerging-markets experience sharp stock and bond capital shrinkage and lower currency valuation. The negative ripple effects create contagion from the Asian countries such as India, Iran, and Israel to South European countries such as Greece, Italy, and the Vatican City.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

Bank failure resolution and financial risk management: Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank.

Dan Rochefort

2023-05-27 11:30:00 Saturday ET

Bank failure resolution and financial risk management: Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank.

Bank failure resolution and financial risk management: Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank.   What are the main root cau

+See More

The Chinese new star board launches for tech firms to list at home.

Daphne Basel

2019-07-09 15:14:00 Tuesday ET

The Chinese new star board launches for tech firms to list at home.

The Chinese new star board launches for tech firms to list at home. The Nasdaq-equivalent new star board serves as a key avenue for Chinese tech companies t

+See More

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink suggests that corporations should make a positive contribution to society apart from boosting the bottomline.

Olivia London

2018-01-09 08:33:00 Tuesday ET

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink suggests that corporations should make a positive contribution to society apart from boosting the bottomline.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink emphasizes his key conviction that public corporations should make a positive contribution to society apart from boosting the botto

+See More

American China-specialists champion the key notion of *strategic engagement* with the Xi administration.

James Campbell

2018-12-11 10:34:06 Tuesday ET

American China-specialists champion the key notion of *strategic engagement* with the Xi administration.

Several eminent American China-specialists champion the key notion of *strategic engagement* with the Xi administration. From the Hoover Institution at Stan

+See More

Tony Robbins explains in his latest book on personal finance that *patience* is the top secret.

Becky Berkman

2017-01-27 17:19:00 Friday ET

Tony Robbins explains in his latest book on personal finance that *patience* is the top secret.

Tony Robbins explains in his latest book on personal finance that *patience* is the top secret to successful stock investment. The stock market embeds an

+See More

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos admits the fact that antitrust scrutiny remains a primary imminent threat to his e-commerce business empire.

John Fourier

2019-04-17 11:34:00 Wednesday ET

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos admits the fact that antitrust scrutiny remains a primary imminent threat to his e-commerce business empire.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos admits the fact that antitrust scrutiny remains a primary imminent threat to his e-commerce business empire. In his annual letter to A

+See More