Turkey to benefit from trade wars between US and China

By Gokhan Yildiz

ISTANBUL

Turkey could gain an advantage from the trade wars between the U.S. and China, according to Ali Osman Akat, chairman of the Turkish American Business Association.

"Compared with the great actors of this crisis, as well as import and export figures of major parties, Turkey will be among the less affected countries in trade wars," Akat told Anadolu Agency in an interview.

Saying that conventional wars nowadays have been replaced with "global trade wars," Akat added that opportunities can be explored whenever there is a crisis.

"We would be less affected due to the big difference between our exports and imports to the U.S., but we would suffer more from import-based manufacturing problems," he added.

Akat proposed to overcome this by launching Turkish organized industries in the U.S. for being able to produce goods there and offer it to the "huge" American market right away.

"On behalf of Turkey, together with our investors and the small, medium and large scale industries, we long to be among the winners of trade wars," he said.

In March, American President Donald Trump imposed a 25-percent tariff on imported iron and steel, and a 10-percent tariff on aluminum -- since then the issue has been discussed heatedly among the U.S. and its major trade partners.

As a result, China said it would impose $3 billion worth of tariffs, between 15 to 25 percent, on 128 American goods.

After Washington's plan to impose 25 percent tariffs on 1,300 Chinese goods that are worth $50 billion in April, Beijing immediately said it will place 25 percent tariffs on 106 American goods worth $50 billion.

Trump's moves to start trade wars, which he predicted would be "easy to win," have drawn condemnation and retaliatory tariffs worldwide.

The U.S. announced that starting on June 1, 2018, it will impose additional duties of 25 percent and 10 percent respectively on imports of steel and alumminium from the EU.

According to the European Commission, the U.S. measures affect EU exports worth €6.4 billion ($7.4 billion) and of this amount, the EU will rebalance on €2.8 billion ($3.2 billion) worth of exports immediately.

Last Friday, the U.S. government has officially begun implementing tariffs worth $34 billion on Chinese imports signaling the start of a trade war.

The U.S.' trade deficit with China was around $375 billion in 2017.

* Jeyhun Aliyev contributed to this story from Ankara