Donald Trump's Letter to Turkey

About

Donald Trump's Letter to Turkey refers to a letter written in October 2019 to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the President of Turkey, from President Donald Trump, in which he urges Erdogan to make a "good deal" and threatens to destroy the Turkish economy. On Twitter, the letter was widely mocked and criticized by those who felt Trump's language was overly simplistic and inflammatory.

Origin

On October 16th, 2019, Fox Business Anchor Trish Regan^[1] tweeted a copy of Trumps letter to Erdogan (shown below). The tweet received over 25,300 likes and 13,100 retweets in a day. The letter ends with Trump saying,

"History will look upon you favorably if you get this done the right and humane way. It will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don't happen. Don't be a tough guy. Don't be a fool! I will call you later."

Spread

On October 16th, 2019, New York Times White House correspondent Katie Rogers^[2] confirmed the the letter is real in a tweet that garnered over 31,900 likes and 11,100 retweets in a day (shown below, left). That same day many people began sharing child-like letters and comparing them to Trump's letter. Twitter user @Pappiness^[3] shared a parody of the letter which accumulated over 1,600 likes and 400 retweets in a day. Twitter user @ditzkoff^[4] posted the trump yelling a lawn-mowing boy image with the caption "DON'T BE A TOUGH GUY! DON'T BE A FOOL! I will call you later." (shown below, right). The tweet gained over 6,700 likes and 1,000 retweets in a day.

That same day, Twitter user @EricDKoch tweeted a video of "Trump's crazy letter as the Star Wars crawl" (shown below, right). The tweet garnered over 19,900 likes and 7,700 retweets in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References