Turkey said on Monday it had lifted “retaliatory tariffs” imposed in 2018 on US imports ranging from passenger cars to fruit, in a sign of a “warming” of bilateral relations.
And such a step comes as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan travels to the United States, foreign media write, reports Telegraph.
Erdogan will attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week before a meeting at the White House on Thursday with US President Donald Trump, who said he expected trade and military deals to be signed during the visit.
The cancellation of the tariffs, which, when imposed, had covered products including passenger cars, fruit, rice, tobacco, alcoholic beverages, some fuels and chemical products, was announced in the Official Gazette of Turkey.
Erdogan last visited Trump at the White House in 2019, and the pair have had a turbulent past.
While they had a close personal bond during Trump’s first term, it was also a period of strained bilateral relations due to disagreements over Washington’s ties to Kurdish fighters in Syria and Ankara’s relations with Moscow.
Turkey angered the Trump administration in 2019 by purchasing Russian defense systems.
In response, Washington canceled a planned sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey and excluded it from a joint production program for the planes. /Telegraph