I'm not sure this is at all so clear-cut. For the last year, Turkey has steered a quite independent course from Europe, forgoing sanctions and providing an alternative to the South Stream project. And 30 billion dollars of trade is nothing to sniff at, but.... if you look beyond the dollar totals, you will see that this trade is overwhelmingly unidirectional. Turkey imports Russian goods, mainly gas and oil, but in turn exports very little to back to Russia. Yes, you could phrase this as a balance of trade issue, but that's seems too clever by half. Is Russia going to cut off its second largest natural gas customer or it's 4th largest oil customer? And long-term what does this rift mean for the energy-dependent Russian economy? Europe is weaning itself off of unreliable Russian energy. South Stream is kaput. The Chinese have mothballed an already extremely favorable energy deal.
No doubt, even before the current rift, the Turkish economy was slowing from around 9 percent growth to around 3.8% (why did you round down?). That's still pretty healthy. Inflation is around 6 or so percent, not great, but pretty low by Turkish standards.
I do think the loss of tourist dollars will hurt, as will the loss of jobs for Turkish workers and businesses. But again, dig a little deeper, and you have to ask yourself, with the Russian economy in recession, wouldn't a lot of these tourist dollars dry up anyway? And as for the businesses and workers, many (likely most) of them are focused in the building and construction sector. Since the late 1980s, Turkey has built a lot of mid-range apartment and office buildings in Russia. Well, what do you think happens to this sector in a recession?
And let me add, I am no fan of the current government in Turkey, or the downing of the Russian jet, but as a scholar of Russia, I find your analysis of the economics here troubling and one-sided. I am quite wary of your source, Russian-insider.com, which is run by a frequent contributor to RT News, and is aimed specifically to counter the reporting from the Economist, the NYT, etc. While I have all kinds of long-running problems with western reporting on Russia, I think it has actually improved pretty significantly over the past some years (and is in any case much more reliable than RT News). Maybe it's just that you now operating on my turf, so I can see more clearly, but I don't think this piece is up to your usual standards.
I'm not sure this is at all so clear-cut. For the last year, Turkey has steered a quite independent course from Europe, forgoing sanctions and providing an alternative to the South Stream project. And 30 billion dollars of trade is nothing to sniff at, but.... if you look beyond the dollar totals, you will see that this trade is overwhelmingly unidirectional. Turkey imports Russian goods, mainly gas and oil, but in turn exports very little to back to Russia. Yes, you could phrase this as a balance of trade issue, but that's seems too clever by half. Is Russia going to cut off its second largest natural gas customer or it's 4th largest oil customer? And long-term what does this rift mean for the energy-dependent Russian economy? Europe is weaning itself off of unreliable Russian energy. South Stream is kaput. The Chinese have mothballed an already extremely favorable energy deal.
No doubt, even before the current rift, the Turkish economy was slowing from around 9 percent growth to around 3.8% (why did you round down?). That's still pretty healthy. Inflation is around 6 or so percent, not great, but pretty low by Turkish standards.
I do think the loss of tourist dollars will hurt, as will the loss of jobs for Turkish workers and businesses. But again, dig a little deeper, and you have to ask yourself, with the Russian economy in recession, wouldn't a lot of these tourist dollars dry up anyway? And as for the businesses and workers, many (likely most) of them are focused in the building and construction sector. Since the late 1980s, Turkey has built a lot of mid-range apartment and office buildings in Russia. Well, what do you think happens to this sector in a recession?
And let me add, I am no fan of the current government in Turkey, or the downing of the Russian jet, but as a scholar of Russia, I find your analysis of the economics here troubling and one-sided. I am quite wary of your source, Russian-insider.com, which is run by a frequent contributor to RT News, and is aimed specifically to counter the reporting from the Economist, the NYT, etc. While I have all kinds of long-running problems with western reporting on Russia, I think it has actually improved pretty significantly over the past some years (and is in any case much more reliable than RT News). Maybe it's just that you now operating on my turf, so I can see more clearly, but I don't think this piece is up to your usual standards.