Oct 11, 2019

President Donald Trump is trying to get ahead of a bipartisan effort in Congress to sanction Turkey after his order to withdraw US troops from the northeast Syrian border paved the way for Ankara’s offensive against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin announced today that Trump plans to sign an executive order that could lead to sanctions on Turkish “individuals and entities” before Congress moves on the sweeping sanctions proposed by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.

“I think the message to Congress is I know that people were contemplating sanctions,” said Mnuchin. “We’re on top of sanctions. The president will use them when necessary.” However, Mnuchin also said the Trump administration hopes to avoid using the sanctions even as he vowed that the United States “can shut down the Turkish economy if we need to.”

Mnuchin made the announcement after speaking with Turkish Finance Minister Berat Albayrak and promised to outline the potential sanctions to the Turks in private.

Why it matters: It remains unclear how the White House’s proposed sanctions stack up with the broad sanctions in the Graham-Van Hollen bill, which targets Turkey’s defense and energy industries as well as top Turkish officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Mnuchin’s counterpart Albayrak.