Economics
It’s Erdogan Against the Markets After JPMorgan Watershed
With Turkey in recession, its leaders have taken a starkly anti-market turn.
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The last time Turks went to the polls, the country’s paramount leader for the past 16 years vowed to tighten his grip on the economy. With another national campaign — this time for municipal offices — nearing its climax, he’s rolling out the same playbook.
In the past eight months, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has imposed price controls, forced lenders to keep credit flowing and banned the use of dollars in most contracts. Most recently, he trained his invective on a familiar target: foreign bankers, with the promise of an investigation into New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co. for predicting a decline in the lira.