President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that Turkey would boycott US -made electronic products, escalating a feud with the Trump administration that has contributed to the rapid decline of the Turkish currency.
The call from businesses came as Erdogan demanded a boycott of Apple and other USA -made products in an effort to hurt the United States.
Erdogan has been repeatedly photographed with Apple products including the iPhone and iPad. "I believe in my nation", Erdogan vowed, the New York Times reported.
"We will boycott U.S. electronic goods", Erdogan said in a televised speech, raising the stakes in a spat that has seen the Turkish lira plunge to record lows.
"Whatever we buy from overseas we are going to produce here in better quality and export it".
"If (the United States) have the iPhone, there's Samsung on the other side", he said, referring to U.S. giant Apple's iconic phone and the top South Korean brand.
"We (also) have our Venus and Vestel", he said about homegrown Turkish electronics brands.
The trade fracas heated up as Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan doubled tariffs on some U.S. imports, and China lodged a complaint with the World Trade Organisation against American trade policies.
"The secret to successful states is their readiness for war".
The Trump administration's use of tariffs as a multi-purpose weapon and the impact it is having, or might have, on China and the emerging economies and resource economies that are part of China's supply chain has been layered over factors that by themselves would have resulted in a stronger USA dollar.
"On the one hand you are a strategic ally and on the other you shoot [the country] in the foot".
Turkey has raised tariffs on some US products under the principle of reciprocity "in response to the USA administration's deliberate attacks on our economy", Vice President Fuat Oktay wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
The United States imposed sanctions on two Turkish government ministers over the trial on terrorism charges of USA evangelical pastor Andrew Brunson in Turkey, and last week Washington raised tariffs on Turkish metal exports.
Turkish lira banknotes are pictured at a currency exchange office in Istanbul, Turkey on August 13, 2018.
The lira was at 6.5 to the dollar, a gain of 5.0 percent on the day and 7.4 to the euro, well off the record lows of 7.24 to the dollar and 8.12 to the euro seen Monday.
The lira rebounded by 6 per cent, strengthening at one point to less than 6 lira to the dollar, after the banking regulator hit Turkish lenders with new restrictions on extending lira for overseas swap transactions.
Erdogan continued: "Together with our people, we will stand decisively against the dollar, forex prices, inflation and interest rates". Amid calls to "burn" the dollars, the group headed to a bank branch where they converted the money, it said.
It is an issue that has pre-occupied some of the global financial agencies, who have been concerned about the potential for an emerging market financial and economic crisis because of the divergence between conditions in the United States and developing economies.
A stronger greenback, even as the Fed is accelerating the unwinding of the legacy of its buying of USA government bonds and mortgages during the financial crisis, means the U.S. currency is becoming both more expensive, and less available.
"The plunge in the lira, which began in May, now looks certain to push the Turkish economy into recession", Andrew Kenningham, chief global economist at Capital Economics, told Reuters.
Turkey's business lobbies have also called for a tighter monetary policy to stabilize the lira, and for a diplomatic solution to the United States-Turkish dispute.
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