Trump’s First Hundred Days and Türkiye
At the end of President Trump’s first 100 days in office, the US and world media published assessments of the past three months.
The International Crisis Group, in a commentary titled “Trump’s Turbulent First 100 Days: Views from Around the Globe,” said:
“The first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House will go down in history. Not since the Great Depression of the 1930s, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt summoned the U.S. Congress for a special 100-day session, has a new administration attacked its first three-plus months in office with such a ferocious commitment to rewiring the status quo.
“But the similarities end there. While Roosevelt’s aim was to stabilise the United States in the wake of a financial catastrophe through institution building and legislative reform, the Trump administration is playing an entirely different game with different tools. Operating unilaterally through executive action, it seeks to upend a domestic and international political and legal order that it argues has served a narrow slice of the U.S. elite at the expense of the greater public. Proponents suggest it is a process of creative destruction.”[i]
What I found particularly interesting was the attention paid to Mr. Trump’s executive orders because in Türkiye, many also see these as a political problem, a pathway toward authoritarian rule. Executive orders are presidential directives to executive branch agencies that tell them how to implement existing laws. In other words, they are not laws, but…
During his first hundred days in office, President Trump signed 140 executive orders. 54 of these were new ones, and 96 revoked older orders.[ii]
In his first hundred days in office, Franklin D. Roosevelt issued 93 executive orders, Harry Truman 57. The two were wartime presidents. Bill Clinton issued 13, George W. Bush 11, Barack Obama 19, Donald Trump (2017) 33, and Joe Biden 42.
Many observers see Trump’s executive orders as an indication of his desire to erode the separation of powers, the cornerstone of democracy, and create an “imperial presidency.
The presidential decree (CBK in abbreviated Turkish) was introduced into the Turkish legal system by constitutional amendments adopted by the 2017 constitutional referendum. Before the referendum, the executive branch, including the office of the president of the republic, did not have direct regulatory authority—that is, all regulatory acts of the executive would have to be derived from a delegatory act by the legislature, or in the case of regulations, they had to be limited to the implementation of law.
The constitutional amendments abolished the council of ministers and transferred its authority to the president who, under the new system, constitutes a unitary executive. By authorizing the president to issue CBKs without receiving prior authorization from the legislature, the new system also grants the president direct regulatory authority, albeit with a limited scope.[iii]
That “limited scope” has expanded since then. On March 20, 2021, for example, a presidential decree announced Ankara’s withdrawal from the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, generally referred to as the “İstanbul Convention”. Since the Convention had become law after the Turkish Parliament approved it, a parliamentary vote must have preceded the withdrawal. That, however, was not the case.
In brief, while a perfect match would be out of the question since the US constitutional system would not allow that, the presidential trends in Türkiye and the US are similar. Moreover, Mr. Trump has, on more than one occasion, expressed praise, appreciation, and support for his Turkish counterpart, and a summit between the two may prove a crowning affair. However, Mr. Trump’s emphasis on “deals” and “dealmakers” worries many in Türkiye.
Last week, the US and Ukraine signed a deal that gave Washington access to the country’s critical minerals and other natural resources. This is an agreement Kyiv hopes will secure US support against Russia.
The US State Department Deputy Spokesperson said, “I can say this president is a deal-maker and the president is focused on having an enduring economic partnership with Ukraine that is beneficial and prosperous for both of our nations.” President Zelensky emphasized that the minerals agreement was a “truly equal agreement”. Would Ukraine have signed the “deal” had history been written differently, had it not been at war with Russia? No.
May Day, Workers’ Day, or International Workers’ Day, commemorates the historic struggles and gains made by the labor movement, and is celebrated in more than one hundred and sixty countries on May 1.
In Türkiye, however, last Thursday became a day under martial law. In İstanbul, major transport lines were closed, and entry into İstanbul’s main Taksim Square was prohibited. Some said that İstanbul was under siege and martial law. According to the İstanbul Governorship, 52,656 policemen were on duty, and hundreds were detained, many of whom were released the next day.
Why such security? Because the government did not wish to see the May 1 celebration rallies turn into popular anti-government protests. It also wanted to discourage further participation in opposition rallies. But, despite the rain in Ankara and İstanbul, huge rallies were held, calls were made for democracy, justice, fair and equal opportunity. Like in earlier rallies organized by the opposition, there was no violence by the participants.
More importantly, on April 30, President Erdoğan addressed the AKP parliamentary group. Accusing the leader of the CHP, Özgür Özel, of pursuing presidential ambitions, he remarkably said:
“And, regardless of his hopeless state, he has started pursuing a presidential candidacy. Will his breath last until 2028? Let’s see how many more CHP members will perish in the whirlpool of politics. We will all watch and see.”
It seems that the second word after “radish” to dominate the political discussion during the next few months would be “perish”. The latter, however, is no joking matter. It will remain on the agenda, particularly after yesterday’s attack on Mr. Özel.
After twenty-two years of AKP rule, Türkiye is experiencing a long and painful economic crisis. Like elsewhere, economic recovery depends on domestic peace, political stability, and confidence in the future. If the desire for the restoration of democracy prevails over AKP’s focus on the perpetuation of power, a path could open before Türkiye. Unfortunately, as the country struggles with domestic challenges, the conflict-ridden Middle East is being redesigned by external powers, prominently among them the US and Israel. It was AKP’s biggest mistake to abandon the decades-long Republican policy of not getting involved in intra-Arab affairs and to dive into the Syrian whirlpool.
Türkiye needs to start a major effort to break this vicious circle no later than today. And it has to start at home.
[i] https://www.crisisgroup.org/global-united-states-internal/trumps-turbulent-first-100-days-views-around-globe?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email
[ii] https://abcnews.go.com/538/trumps-record-number-executive-orders-testing-limits-presidential/story?id=118535046
[iii] chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llglrd/2022666100/2022666100.pdf