{"id":40956,"date":"2026-08-18T17:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T17:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/40956\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T17:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T17:34:08","slug":"what-the-trump-erdogan-call-reveals-about-the-new-middle-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/40956\/","title":{"rendered":"What the Trump-Erdogan Call Reveals About the New Middle East"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump spent years bullying Europe into taking responsibility for its own security<\/a>. If only he\u2019d started a war there, he could\u2019ve saved himself a lot of trouble.<\/p>\n

Within months of the White House authorizing mass strikes against Iran<\/a> and dragging the United States into another Middle Eastern conflict from which there is no simple escape, regional powers Turkey<\/a>, Saudi Arabia<\/a> and nuclear-armed Pakistan<\/a> announced they\u2019d struck a brand-new defense pact.<\/p>\n

Trump on Sunday praised the agreement, described by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan as \u201ctechnically\u201d the same as NATO\u2019s mutual defense principle, on Truth Social. \u201cIt shows how the Middle East<\/a> is coming together, and how Countries will finally be able to defend themselves in a more meaningful way\u2026 WOW!\u201d<\/p>\n

Read More on Analysis<\/p>\n

A day later, when the 60-day deadline for Tehran and Washington to strike a peace under June\u2019s memorandum of understanding expired, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan picked up the phone to his American counterpart.<\/p>\n

He told Trump to \u201cmake the utmost use of diplomacy\u201d to end the conflict, and added that Turkey will take a \u201cstrong stance on ensuring regional stability and security\u201d via their new defense pact.<\/p>\n

It’s a sign of things to come. War in Iran has shown key Middle Eastern powers they can no longer rely solely on the U.S. to guarantee their security and are taking matters into their own hands. Before long, Washington may discover that a Middle East less dependent on American protection is also one less susceptible to American pressure.<\/p>\n

\"L-R:The Middle East\u2019s NATO Moment<\/p>\n

The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, signed at Islam\u2019s holiest city on August 7 by Erdogan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, is by no means as robust as the North Atlantic Treaty that underpins NATO<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Its headline provision is unmistakably NATO-like<\/a>: an armed attack against one of the three states will be considered an attack against all. But almost everything else remains under construction.<\/p>\n

Fidan said members would need to take \u201cvery humble but concrete steps\u201d to nail down the agreement’s limits and decide through consultation what kind of support an attack would actually trigger. A ministerial committee and Saudi-based secretariat are planned, but operational details remain scant. <\/p>\n

Other countries may be invited to join the pact, but Egypt, the obvious first choice given its close ties with all three signatories as part of the informal \u201cSunni Diamond,” has not yet expressed interest.<\/p>\n

That said, the agreement carries real potential, as each state brings something unique to the table.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia boasts a huge economy thanks to its oil wealth, along with broad political and commercial influence. Pakistan fields an enormous military and is the only member of the trio with nuclear weapons. And Turkey, besides having the largest military in NATO apart from the U.S., is also home to one of the world\u2019s most advanced defense industries. <\/p>\n

If they can turn those complementary strengths into meaningful cooperation across joint defense production, air and missile defense, intelligence sharing, and maritime security, the arrangement could complement America\u2019s own objectives rather well.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s National Security Strategy calls for shifting American military attention toward the Western Hemisphere, maintaining focus on the Indo-Pacific and avoiding the kind of \u201cforever wars\u201d that have repeatedly bogged the U.S. down in the Middle East. It also explicitly calls for regional partners to shoulder more responsibility, as Trump has made perfectly clear to America\u2019s European allies.<\/p>\n

However, there is one vital difference.<\/p>\n

Europe is being asked to carry more of the burden inside NATO, an alliance which the U.S. helped to create and effectively leads. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are building a separate entity, and there is no American seat at the table.<\/p>\n

\"U.S.The Price of Burden-Sharing<\/p>\n

Dependence has always bought the United States something in return: influence.<\/p>\n

Trump wants NATO\u2019s European members to become more self-reliant, but Washington has shown considerably less enthusiasm when \u201cself-reliant\u201d starts to mean \u201cindependent of America.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, when the European Union in 2025 moved to prioritize European weapons manufacturers over U.S. suppliers, the White House threatened to cut off the bloc\u2019s access to American weapons systems<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In other words, Washington likes burden-sharing, but not at the expense of its control. The Iran war<\/a> has made that balance harder to maintain in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Gulf states spent decades cultivating their status as commercial and diplomatic safe havens in the shade of an American security umbrella; Iranian missiles and drones have muddied that image. Turkey and Saudi Arabia have also watched Israel<\/a> ruthlessly pursue its own objectives with no regard for wider regional stability, with Washington either unable or unwilling to restrain it.<\/p>\n

None of that means the U.S. will be replaced overnight. Saudi Arabia remains one of the largest importers of U.S. defense equipment and signed a historic $142 billion defense sales agreement just last year. Turkey is still trying to purchase America\u2019s fifth-generation F-35 jet, even as its own domestic fifth-generation air platform is expected to enter service before the end of the decade.<\/p>\n

But as Ankara, Riyadh and Islamabad pursue greater strategic autonomy through defense partnerships beyond Washington\u2019s direct control, other regional powers will be watching closely. If the Mecca pact begins to deliver meaningful military coordination, access to new defense technology or greater diplomatic leverage, it could provide a model for the signatories\u2019 neighbors to follow suit.<\/p>\n

Erdogan\u2019s call offered a small preview of what that future might look like. He did not threaten Trump or present the Mecca pact as an anti-American bloc. He did, however, tell Trump to reengage in negotiations, and made it clear that Turkey intends to play a greater role in setting the agenda for Middle Eastern security.<\/p>\n

The question is no longer whether some Middle Eastern powers want to take greater responsibility for their own defense; they plainly do. Now, Trump must ask whether America is prepared to surrender some of the influence that came with doing it for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump spent years bullying Europe into taking responsibility for its own security. If only he\u2019d started…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[525,13907,468,296,293,1167,59,58,1332,84],"class_list":["post-40956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-recep-tayyip-erdogan","tag-donald-trump","tag-for-members","tag-iran","tag-iran-war","tag-middle-east","tag-pakistan","tag-president-of-turkiye","tag-recep-tayyip-erdogan","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/turkiye\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}