The emerging Turkey-Venezuela alliance is a positive development as both countries struggle to deal with the repercussions of globalisation or monopoly capitalism amid crises, wrote Europe Reloaded website.

Following a 1995 visit by former Turkish President Süleyman Demirel to Argentina, Brazil and Chile in an effort to increase Turkish trade and cooperation in the Latin American continent, Turkey expanded its influence in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Brazil and Cuba, the article said.

Venezuela opened the first Latin American embassy in Istanbul in 2010 and a trade commission was set up between the two countries.

Bilateral trade between Turkey and Venezuela has increased exponentially, rising to $ 35.5 million in 2017, an increase of 103.8 percent, it said, with Turkey now exporting food, automotive machinery, construction and chemical supplies as well as badly-needed medical products.

A 2017 agreement between the two countries on cooperation in security, aviation, agriculture and tourism has boosted bilateral trade to an estimated $2 billion.

Turkey has also become the main destination for the refinement of Venezuela’s gold reserves, one of the largest in the world.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro comes at a difficult moment for the Venezuelan president, ‘’who is facing a US-imposed economic war, a violent destabilisation campaign, and a possible military coup,’’ the article said, noting that, nothing of substance has changed regarding U.S. policy in Latin America since Donald Trump came to power. In fact, U.S. aggression has worsened in the case of Cuba and Venezuela, it said.

The U.S. decision to withdraw from Syria, announced last month, has strengthened multipolarity in international relations, with Russia, Iran and Turkey coming out as the clear geopolitical winners of the Syrian war, the article noted.

Geopolitics requires strategic alliances between states of radically different ideologies, the article concluded, stressing that both Venezuela and Turkey have their work cut out for them in fighting globalisation or monopoly capitalism.