Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act

Which is huge, because it was in his administration that they first began the movement away from pulling Turkey out of the consortium.

Turkey is still under CAATSA sanctions for having purchased S-400 missile system, Russian missile defense system.

I think there is a sense that Trump is interested in waving that away, but cannot.

Therefore, US Congress is important.

So that inner circle relationship is better.

Institutionally, There's still a long way to go in terms of repairing the bilateral relationship.

It's greater conversation, but it's not, you know, Turkey still has CAATSA sanctions, and I think the Israel element, the triangulation of this relationship is still something U.S. officials need to solve, address.

I mean, it's really interesting sort of you're getting to some of what it tells us about Trump's foreign policy, which is another theme of this podcast.

Turkey then made a request to purchase new F-16s in 2021, and it was greenlit by the Biden administration in 2024, but talks then stalled.

Turkey has been pushing the Trump administration to remove the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act sanctions, but per the law, Turkey must cease to be in possession of the S-400 system.

Turkey's desire for new F-16 jets comes as the country looks to renew its fleet and maintain air defense capabilities.

The Houthi rebels in Yemen accused Saudi Arabia of carrying out a strike on the key Red Sea port city of Mukha that left six dead on Tuesday.

So even though the US was OK with India using Chabahar port in Iran, it was only meant for aid going to Afghanistan.

In 2019, in fact, later in that year, if you remember, the U.S. came out with its CAATSA law prohibiting big ticket defense items coming from Russia.

India went ahead and bought the S-400, but Trump was not really very active on implementing that particular law.

So the question is, is that going to happen again? in 2019 trump was tough on the idea that all oil from iran and venezuela must stop he sent a special envoy to delhi nikki haley to say india must stop buying iran and venezuela oil india complied then you come to 2026 25 when trump comes back he put those tariffs on india but also double the tariffs for india because it was still buying russian oil so it went to 50 at one point of time In 2025, later in the year, the waiver on Chabahar port also ended.

Early elements of that, you could go back and look at some of the acquisitions of either Russian or Chinese equipment 10 some odd years ago across the region.

The US passed a law called CAATSA, Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, during the first Trump term to limit Russian sales internationally.

That's largely been successful with regard to Russian sales, but hasn't necessarily limited some of the hedging behavior in defense acquisitions.

So what does a prime do to kind of help support U.S. policy knowing that this behavior exists and a prime doesn't control U.S. policy? It's got to operate within the framework of that international environment and U.S.