2018年8月11日，中心研究员王晋于中央电视台英语频道（CGTN）发表评论文章，全文如下：

Turkey is witnessingthe depreciation of its national currency, the lira,after US President Donald Trump announced a doubling of steel and aluminumtariffs against Turkey. 

The depreciation ofthe lira could be attributed to Washington’s economic pressure, as demonstratedby Donald Trump’s announcement that “our relations with Turkey are not good atthis time!”

The extent of thelira's deprecation might have gone beyond Turkey’s expectations. It seems thatRecep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s ever-combative president, was also dazed as heappealed to Turkish citizens to convert their dollars to liras and stressed:“It will pass, they have tried to beat us up with tanks, jets, and coupattempts… we will come out of this stronger…they may have their dollars, but wehave our people and Allah!”

Tensions between Turkey and the US, two NATO allies, havebeen escalating in recent years. The immediate trigger is the American pastorAndrew Brunson, who was detained in Turkey in October 2016. Negotiations overhis release broke down in late July this year.

On August 1, the USTreasury announced that it was freezing the assets of Turkey’s justice andinterior ministers over Brunson’s detention. 

Congress is pushingfor a slew of separate sanctions, including halting the delivery of F-35fighter jets and blocking funding to Turkey from the World Bank and theInternational Monetary Fund. 

Washington’sinclusion of Turkey in its trade war with China and the European Union, andAnkara’s resistance to US sanctions against Iran, are both factors that makethe lira’s devaluation inevitable.

The detention ofAndrew Brunson is a miniature of rugged Turkey-US bilateral relations. Eversince the failed military coup attempt against Erdogan and his Justice andDevelopment Party (AKP) in July 2016, hostility and distrust between Turkey andthe US have emerged and escalated.

Ankara believes thatWashington was behind the coup attempt and provided refuge to Fethullah Gulen,the cleric accused of leading the coup attempt, while Washington insisted onits innocence. 

Ankara believesGulen still operates and manipulates a “state within Turkey”, and maintainsthat Andrew Brunson is an important member of this “state”.

The US economic pressure was further aggravated afterTurkey’s Economy Minister Berat Albayrak, who is Erdogan's son-in-law,presented his new economic plan for Turkey, “New Economic Approach”, in a pressconference in Istanbul on Friday.

The press conferencewas attended by leading industrialists, bankers, leaders of economicassociations, and even Erdogan himself. Although the measures Albayrakmentioned in his speech might be very positive, there weren’t any concretemeasures that display how Turkey will counter-attack US sanctions.

Just as the Harvardeconomist Dani Rodrik tweeted: “Making a speech like Albayrak’s in the midst ofa currency free fall without a single concrete measure shows utter lack ofcomprehension about what is happening and what is required.”

For the time being, given the combative natures of bothErdogan and Trump, tensions between Turkey and the US will continue. It isstill hardly possible to forecast at which point the depreciation of the lirawill stop.