Opinion

How did 2025 unfold for Venezuela and Latin America?

Published

30.12.2025 13:06

For Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as for other regions of the world, the year 2025 meant being under the constant and intensified scrutiny of the United States government. However, even though the White House’s trade war, characterized by arbitrary tariffs, primarily targeted countries with which the United States had a trade deficit (China, Canada, Germany, Japan, Ireland), Latin America has been the main focus of the deployment of the “New Monroe Doctrine.” And, within this region, Venezuela has been the country that, on the one hand, has suffered the most from it, and on the other hand, has confronted it with the greatest resistance, determination, and courage.

If 2024 ended with the certainty that Donald Trump’s third presidency would represent a scenario of direct confrontation with Venezuela, 2025 culminates with the realization that a good portion of the predictions regarding the aggressions that the Republican administration in the White House would apply against the Caribbean country materialized. But not even the most audacious could have imagined that Trump would invent a nonexistent armed conflict with Venezuela to advance his attempt to subdue the government of Nicolás Maduro and seize Venezuelan oil. It is worth clarifying that we say it is a nonexistent conflict because Venezuela does not threaten US territory or the political stability of the US government. This idea, widely disseminated and largely consolidated, is only one part of the narrative that has been constructed since President Hugo Chávez arrived at Miraflores Palace in 1999.

Despite the extraordinary nature of the US aggression against Venezuela, as we know, it is not the only Latin American country that, in 2025, has suffered the “Trump Corollary” to US imperialism and the rise of the extreme right. Let us, then, review how the rest of the region has been affected in political, economic, social, environmental, cultural, and military terms.

Brazil: For the first time since its creation in 1992, the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP) was held in the Amazon region, one of the planet’s most important lungs. The 30th COP took place in Belém do Pará, where funding to address the effects of the climate crisis was tripled, but a concrete roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels was not agreed upon. This lack of commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, despite reaffirming the Paris Agreement and seeing progress in the new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), drew criticism. COP 31 will be held in Antalya, Turkey, which will share the presidency with Australia.

On the political and judicial front, 2025 was the year that saw the conviction and imprisonment of former far-right conservative president Jair Bolsonaro for his role in the attempted coup d’état of January 8, 2023, in Brasília. This unprecedented event in Brazilian political history, which targeted Congress, the Presidential Palace, and the Supreme Court, tested democracy and the functioning of the separation of powers in the South American giant. Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years and three months by the Supreme Federal Court (STF), Brazil’s highest court, becoming the first former president found guilty of leading a coup. Trump unsuccessfully attempted to support Bolsonaro by imposing sanctions and tariffs on some key Brazilian exports (coffee, meat, fruit, etc.). However, a few months later, due to the price increases of these products in the US domestic market, the US president was forced to remove those tariffs.

México: The first female president in the history of this country, Claudia Sheinbaum, demonstrated her political leadership with very positive results in 2025. As one of the United States’ main trading partners, when Trump took office on January 10th of this year, Mexico topped the list of supposed enemies of U.S. economic, social, territorial, and national security stability. Trump accused Mexico of “not doing enough in the fight against drug trafficking,” thus justifying a 30% tariff on all Mexican exports. He also designated six Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations, including the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Sheinbaum responded with concrete actions: dozens of suspected drug traffickers were extradited to the United States. Furthermore, the Mexican president explained to her North American counterpart and neighbor why the tariffs would harm the US economy, and, as happened with other countries, Trump had to back down.

In the middle of the year, Mexico implemented a historic reform by holding its first-ever elections to choose judges and magistrates through popular vote. This judicial election, which renewed more than 2,600 positions nationwide, was made possible by the constitutional reform approved in 2014 during the administration of López Obrador (AMLO). The 2015 judicial reform established that all judges must be elected by popular vote; it also reduced the number of Supreme Court justices from 11 to 9; and replaced the Federal Judiciary Council with the Judicial Administration Body and the Judicial Disciplinary Tribunal. The objective of this initiative is to combat corruption and nepotism, increase transparency, and bring the judiciary closer to the Mexican people.

Sheinbaum faced a variety of challenges, among them, one of the most internationally impactful was the protests by the so-called “Generation Z” (people under 30), which gained momentum after the assassination of a mayor in the state of Michoacán. These protesters used the so-called “War on Drugs” to attack the government and the MORENA party. However, the Mexican president has been clear in stating that the war on drugs, besides being illegal, has not solved the problem but has worsened it, and that extrajudicial killings are not an option in her administration. In this sense, Sheinbaum continues the path of the Fourth Transformation, initiated by AMLO, with which she is building her own political hegemony.

In 2025, Mexico and Brazil were the main drivers of poverty reduction in Latin America. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean’s (ECLAC 2025) annual report revealed that thanks to increases in the minimum wage, government transfers to social welfare programs, and the economic recovery of these two countries, which together represent more than half of Latin America’s total population, poverty in the region decreased for the first time since ECLAC began conducting these studies. Mexico contributed 60% and 49% to the overall reduction in poverty and extreme poverty, respectively. Brazil also contributed significantly, accounting for 30% of the reduction in overall poverty and 31% of the reduction in extreme poverty.

Argentina: The second year of Javier Milei’s administration was marked primarily by a corruption scandal within his government. This included, on the one hand, the “$Libra” cryptocurrency scam, promoted by Milei through his X account, for which he faces a fraud investigation in the United States; and on the other hand, the bribes his sister, Karina Milei, solicited from public institutions amidst drastic cuts in public spending. By 2025, the most vulnerable sectors of Argentine society had suffered the consequences of the Milei model, fueled by low inflation due to weak demand, which in turn led to decreased production, business closures, and layoffs. These workers now lack access to social programs and policies to support them.

The progressive political field saw Cristina Fernández convicted of corruption and politically disqualified for six years. Fernández, who is under house arrest and remains key in building an alternative to Milei’s government, has lost political power. In this context, the governor of Buenos Aires, Alex Kicillof, Cristina Fernández’s former economy minister, consolidated his national profile with an eye toward the 2027 presidential elections after winning the legislative elections in the most important province in electoral terms, where he secured a 14% lead over Milei.

Milei, for his part, received full political and partial economic support from the Trump Administration, which allowed him to win the national legislative elections despite the governmental crisis facing his administration.

Presidential elections in 2025: Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Honduras

Ecuador: In the most violent year in Ecuador’s history, right-wing politician Daniel Noboa was re-elected president with 55% of the vote in a runoff election held in April, amid serious allegations of electoral fraud. However, in November, the majority of Ecuadorians rejected the president’s agenda in the Constitutional Referendum and Popular Consultation. The Ecuadorian president sought popular support to convene a Constituent Assembly; to establish foreign military bases in Ecuador; to eliminate state funding for political parties; and to reduce the number of legislators in the National Assembly. These proposals were rejected with 61.58% of the vote.

While Uruguay, under the leadership of Yamandú Orsi of the Frente Amplio, witnessed the return of the left to power, the opposite occurred in one of the Andean nation. Bolivia held presidential (and parliamentary) elections this year, marking the end of a political era that began in 2006 with the election of its first indigenous president, Evo Morales, now a political target and adversary of his former supporters. Evo remains entrenched and seemingly untouchable in the Chapare, a coca-growing region in the department of Cochabamba. On October 20, in the second round, Rodrigo Paz was declared the winner with 54% of the vote. On November 8, upon assuming the presidency, Paz, whose main slogans have been “Capitalism for all” and “Bolivia to the world and the world to Bolivia,” quickly moved to eliminate fuel subsidies and seek to restore foreign relations with the United States and Israel.

On December 24, the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Honduras declared Nasry Asfura the new Honduran president. The decision came almost a month after the elections and with more than 300 of the nearly 2,800 electoral tally sheets showing inconsistencies, in an electoral process rife with fraud allegations from various parties (both left and right) that participated in the contest. Asfura, a conservative and right-wing politician from the National Party, was the candidate supported by Donald Trump, who, upon seeing the delay in releasing the results, did not hesitate to say, “It seems that Honduras is trying to alter the results; if they do, there will be a scandal.”

Chile also closed out 2025 with the return of the right wing. José Antonio Kast won, with 58% of the vote to 42%, in the second round against the Communist Party candidate, Jeannette Jara. Kast, whose father was a member of the Nazi Party in Germany and who has supported the Pinochet dictatorship, will take office in March 2026. Kast’s arrival will implement an emergency administration, representing the biggest shift to the right since the return of democracy in Chile in 1990.

Venezuela: The country most besieged by the US in 2025

Even during his presidential campaign, Venezuela was among the top priorities on Trump’s foreign policy agenda. Therefore, upon assuming his third presidency on January 15, 2015, the US president launched a full-scale attack against the Venezuelan government. Trump has tried everything to undermine the democratic order in Venezuela and install a president subservient to the White House, in order to seize Venezuelan oil.

Openly calling for global mercenaries, the United States government increased the reward for the capture (read: assassination) of President Nicolás Maduro, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López. Meanwhile, Caracas received President Trump’s Special Envoy, Richard Grenell. These seemingly contradictory moves demonstrate the negotiator’s interest in first threatening to test the limits of what he can do. But negotiating with Venezuela is not a zero-sum game.

In another attempt to strangle the Venezuelan economy, Trump announced the termination of Chevron’s license to import Venezuelan oil and its derivatives. At the time, Chevron was the only U.S. oil company authorized to operate in Venezuela, despite the more than 1,000 unilateral coercive measures (sanctions) arbitrarily imposed on Venezuela. The U.S. oil company will continue operating in Venezuela until the end of 2025.

To dispel any remaining doubts that Trump has absolutely no interest in Venezuelan democracy or citizenship, the White House occupant invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which grants the president the authority to identify and expel undocumented immigrants (although Trump has used this law to persecute and deport even immigrants with legal or pending residency). The Venezuelans were labeled as members of the “Tren de Aragua” gang and taken by the hundreds to a high-security prison in El Salvador: CECOT.

Furthermore, in an unprecedented act of war that put Latin America and the world on high alert, Trump deployed warships to the Caribbean, off the coast of Venezuela. To do so, he first had to designate the “Cartel of the Suns” as a terrorist organization, a designation that provided the White House with the legal framework to launch targeted military operations without congressional approval. Violating international law, Trump extrajudicially executed dozens of people by carrying out kinetic attacks in Caribbean waters near Colombia, Venezuela, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Finally, to further escalate tensions, in early December, Trump ordered a total and complete blockade of all oil tankers, sanctioned or not, entering or leaving Venezuela. The US president proudly declared: “Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America. It will only get bigger, and the impact on them will be unprecedented, until they return to the United States of America all the oil, land, and other assets they previously stole from us.”

A few days later, the United States seized two oil tankers flying different flags, allegedly belonging to Iran and China, loaded with Venezuelan crude. In an act of piracy according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the US president ordered the arrest of the crews of these vessels, as well as the seizure of the ships and their cargoes. Currently, the US Coast Guard continues to monitor oil tankers it believes may be carrying Venezuelan oil, and a third seizure -characterized by the Venezuelan government as theft- of a third oil tanker, this time flying the Panamanian flag, has reportedly occurred.

This entire situation has logically resulted in an increase in military spending in the Latin American and Caribbean region, which, faced with the real threat of armed conflict, is preparing to defend its borders. Although official figures will be released in 2026, Brazil and Mexico are expected to top the list, but Colombia, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Ecuador, Peru, the Dominican Republic, and even Argentina, somewhat further from the Caribbean, have also invested in defense.

Final thoughts

As a conclusion to this exhaustive analysis of the regional panorama in 2025, we can determine that Latin America and the Caribbean are at a historical crossroads where the anachronistic pretensions of a declining power collide with the reality of a new multipolar world order.

With his actions in Latin America, and despite his rhetoric as a “great negotiator,” 2025 confirms Trump as a decidedly warmongering, not pacifist, president. In fact, his administration has failed to pacify any international conflict; on the contrary, it has fabricated threats and escalated tensions through naval blockades, acts of piracy that border on international illegality, and the irrational imposition of tariffs on key trading partners.

Speaking of warmongers, paradoxically and symbolically, the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Machado, the far-right leader who has called for military intervention and increased sanctions against Venezuela. This is further evidence that the Venezuelan right wing is to the right of Trump’s political views.

The 2025 assessment makes it clear that the Trump administration attempted to resurrect the old Monroe Doctrine under a veneer of economic and military aggression. However, concrete results have demonstrated that this doctrine has no place in the 21st century. Washington’s attempt to treat the region as its “backyard” clashes head-on with this reality: Venezuela, far from being isolated, has enjoyed the strategic, economic, and diplomatic support of powers like Russia and China, whose presence in the region acts as a necessary counterweight, neutralizing US ambitions for hegemonic control.

While it is true that the rise of the far right in countries like Chile, Bolivia, and Ecuador seems to strengthen Washington’s axis, Mexico’s solid leadership under Claudia Sheinbaum and Brazil’s stability demonstrate that Latin American sovereignty has deep roots. Venezuela’s resistance to the fiercest siege in its history is not only an act of national survival but also the epicenter of a struggle for regional self-determination, sovereignty, and independence from imperialist yokes.

Ultimately, 2025 closes with a resounding lesson for Washington: the natural resources and sovereignty of the Latin American and Caribbean peoples, who have chosen not to submit to foreign powers, can no longer be seized through obsolete 19th-century doctrines. In the case of Venezuela, the alliance with the Eurasian bloc and the strength of Venezuelan institutions have turned the “Trump Corollary” into a “paper tiger.” A free and independent Latin America already moves and lives in a multipolar world.

Related Topics:AMLO Argentina Bolivia Chile Donald Trump Ecuador Honduras Javier Milei Latin America Mexico Monroe Doctrine Nicolas Maduro Uruguay Venezuela

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Opinion

Chaos and reckoning on the streets of France

Published

2 days ago

21/10/2026

Nalan Yazgan

The streets of France have turned into a stage not merely for anger against the government, but for a deep-seated mistrust of the state’s approach to security. The blurring of the line between peaceful demonstrators and looters, lingering questions over police conduct, and the media’s refocusing on the immigration debate are bringing the country to the brink of a political reckoning far deeper than a routine public-order crisis.

In France, a government does not have to wait for an electoral defeat to lose its legitimacy. Sometimes, slogans chanted in a public square, tear gas fired down a boulevard, crowds penned in at the exit of a cordoned-off street, and testimonies of unhindered looting in shops only hundreds of metres away suffice to expose just how fragile the bond of trust between state and society has become.

Events in Paris on Saturday, 17 October point to precisely such a political fracture. Planned demonstrations with the participation of student unions, trade unions, and the Yellow Vests were marked throughout the day by police crackdowns, disputes over march routes, looting in the city centre, and widespread criticism of the government’s perceived inadequacy. The scene that emerged by evening suggested that France was grappling not merely with an issue of public order, but with a burgeoning crisis of confidence regarding the state’s impartiality and political motives.

Whom does the state permit to take to the streets, whom does it obstruct, and which forms of violence does it intervene against, and to what degree? The answer to this question may prove decisive in understanding France’s current political impasse.

The shadow of 17 October 1961

It is impossible to view the date of these demonstrations as a mere coincidence on the calendar. On 17 October 1961, a peaceful demonstration in Paris supporting Algerian independence was brutally crushed by the French police. Scores of people were killed, with some demonstrators drowned after being thrown into the River Seine. The event remains etched in memory as one of the darkest chapters in France’s colonial history and state-sponsored violence.

Sixty-five years later, as police interventions, youth rage, and the state’s stance on the right to protest are debated once again on the streets of Paris on 17 October, the resurgence of this historical memory was inevitable.

This memory may hold a distinct meaning, especially for French citizens of North African descent. Yet it would also be a mistake to reduce all the young people taking part in the demonstrations to a single identity, immigrant origin, or political motivation.

To what extent has the French Republic truly reckoned with the legacy of its colonial past and the relationship its security apparatus maintains with diverse segments of society?

Looters on the streets, where are the police?

Individuals dressed in black and associated in the public eye with the Black Bloc broke into shops at various locations, damaged businesses, and engaged in looting.

While peaceful demonstrators marched under a heavy police presence, fierce criticism arose that looting in certain areas had been allowed to unfold unchecked.

It is striking that while 14,000 police officers were deployed across the capital during the Pope’s visit to Paris, only 10,000 officers in total were assigned across the whole of France for the demonstrations of 17 October.

To which areas were police resources allocated? Had intelligence services assessed the risk of looting beforehand? While a robust security presence flanked the routes of peaceful marches, why was the same effectiveness not demonstrated in safeguarding commercial districts?

The deployment of elite units trained to quell urban unrest, such as CRS 8, does not resolve these questions. On the contrary, the failure to contain the incidents despite the presence of specialized units calls the quality of planning and coordination into question.

A political reckoning extending from Marseille to Limoges

The debate in Paris soon reverberated across the country’s other cities. In a televised address, the socialist mayor of Marseille stated that he had requested police reinforcements from the government, yet the units dispatched fell short given the scale and requirements of the city.

The mayor’s most striking allegation was that while looters stormed Marseille City Hall, the Hôtel de Ville, police officers stood roughly 200 metres away and failed to intervene. Stating that he possessed security camera footage, the mayor affirmed that he would await the scrutiny of a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry and demand an explanation from the government.

The mayor of Limoges likewise issued what amounted to an ultimatum to the government, demanding the reconstruction of the torched town hall and the full reimbursement of costs. According to the mayor, the government had failed to protect a public building and neglected to provide the police with the necessary resources and backing.

These statements emerging from two distinct cities demonstrate that a new confrontation over security policy has arisen between local authorities and the central government. How security resources are allocated, which risks are prioritized, and whether the warnings of local administrations are heeded must all be brought to light.

The deepening scrutiny over the administration’s stance was compounded by President Emmanuel Macron’s refusal to accept the resignation tendered by Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez. The rejection of the resignation raises the question of whether the executive aims to preserve the chain of accountability, or fears that a political reshuffle would only exacerbate the crisis.

In either case, the government faces a crisis of trust.

An eight-minute speech and unanswered demands

Macron’s roughly eight-minute televised address failed to meet expectations regarding the political dimensions of the crisis. The president announced that he would meet with student unions and that the prime minister would engage with political parties, yet he presented neither tangible decisions nor a comprehensive political roadmap.

Education spending, police violence, the Palestinian cause, anti-fascism, and backlash against the Macron administration appear to have ceased being disparate issues in the eyes of the youth.

To be sure, the true strength of a state lies not in silencing its people and streets, but in addressing legitimate demands. It must not be forgotten that institutions unable to adapt and change are destined to break.

Opinion

What is scale in foreign policy? How is success measured in foreign policy?

Published

1 week ago

13/10/2026

Barış Doster

By its very nature, foreign policy feeds into and draws nourishment from numerous, disparate, and varied fields. It is a domain with manifold and diverse inputs. For foreign policy is examined alongside a broad array of subjects, ranging from geography to history, economics to intelligence, and military might to public diplomacy, commonly termed soft power elements.

The capacity of the state, that is, the scale of the state, or in other words the aggregate of its elements of power (namely political, economic, military, and soft power components), is decisive in foreign policy. Geography is decisive in foreign policy. Commercial relations are decisive in foreign policy. Energy dependence on another country or countries, if present, is decisive in foreign policy. Foreign policy cannot be conducted in spite of these four factors.

There is more. A country’s capacity, its scale, does not increase overnight, from one day to the next. It requires planning. It requires national consensus. It requires time. It requires preparation. Nor are these enough. The regional and global environment, the conjuncture, and the international plane must also allow for it. The stance of allies and adversaries is, of course, also important.

For the international environment is, by its nature, complex. It is an environment rife with contradiction, turmoil, conflict, and tension. To draw an analogy, the person in the driver’s seat of foreign policy is not a motorist speeding along the road as they please. There are things they must not forget, rules they must obey, red lights, vehicles speeding up from behind, a truck moving ahead, and a heavy vehicle hurtling toward them from the opposite direction.

Success in foreign policy does not arrive simply because a politician we like has become foreign minister. For a foreign minister is only as effective as the power, capacity, and weight of their country. One must accept this plain truth.

Moreover, there are simple, straightforward questions that reveal whether foreign policy, which some find deeply complex and inscrutable, is successful or not.

There are undoubtedly ways to measure the effectiveness, prestige, influence, and success of foreign policy.

For instance, the number of countries that respect a passport, how many countries can be visited visa-free, and how many countries impose visa requirements and grant those visas only with great difficulty are important indicators of a country’s standing.

Let us take ourselves as an example. Which countries require a visa for the Turkish passport? Which ones do not? Is it easy for our citizens to obtain visas for the countries they primarily wish to visit?

Let us give another example from the Turkic world.

On the Cyprus issue, which we regard as a national cause across government and opposition, right and left, Kemalist and Milli Görüş adherents alike, how many countries have we succeeded in having recognize the TRNC? Why do the Turkic states (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) not recognize the TRNC? Far from recognizing the TRNC, how do the Turkic states in Central Asia (Turkistan) explain to Ankara their developing relations with the Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus, which Türkiye does not recognize, their appointment of ambassadors, and their recognition of Southern Cyprus as the island’s sole legitimate government?

We must also ask this question, of course: What is the state of Türkiye’s bilateral trade with the Turkic states?

Let us give an example of the relationship between foreign policy and big capital.

In which countries are big capital circles, among the greatest supporters of the ruling bloc, winning major tenders?

In our country, across both ruling and opposition ranks, there is a political party order that supports Türkiye’s EU membership. Yet how much progress has been made on EU membership?

Why is US President Trump not keeping the promises he made to Türkiye at the NATO summit held in Ankara a few months ago?

How many contracts has the new regime in Syria, the al-Sharaa administration, awarded to Turkish companies for the reconstruction of its country?

Has the government in Libya that Türkiye supports paid the money owed to Turkish construction firms, outstanding for years?

How does Qatar, with whom our relations are very good, explain its developing ties, energy agreements, and joint military drills with Greece and the Greek Cypriot Administration, disregarding our sensitivities?

Who is the addressee of the harsh statements used in recent weeks by Azerbaijan, which we view as “two states, one nation”? To what extent does Azerbaijan share Türkiye’s policy on Israel? What does Türkiye think about the scale, depth, and intimacy of Azerbaijan-Israel relations?

These questions can certainly be multiplied.

Yet without taking into account the scale of the state and observing the criteria for measuring foreign policy, no sound assessment can be made.

Opinion

The era of corridor alliances in the Middle East

Published

2 weeks ago

07/10/2026

Nalan Yazgan

In the Middle East, war is no longer waged merely to seize territory. The true contest turns on who will control the energy pipelines, trade routes, ports, and railways of tomorrow. Missiles may strike cities today, but the maps of the future are being drawn through transport and energy corridors.

In this context, interpreting Türkiye’s presence in the Mecca Alliance solely as military support for Saudi Arabian security remains incomplete; it fails to explain why two states that viewed each other with mutual suspicion until recently would take steps toward a cooperation close enough to constitute a shared destiny.

Alongside Saudi Arabia’s existential motives, Ankara’s participation in this alliance is anchored in a profound geopolitical foundation: to position itself within, and if possible at the very centre of, the Middle East’s reconfigured energy and transport corridors.

Today, it cannot be said that Riyadh and Ankara see eye to eye on every regional issue. The threat perceptions and priorities of the two countries do not, quite naturally, entirely coincide. On the geopolitical chessboard, partnerships do not always arise from identical agendas. When reasons are sufficiently compelling, particularly existential ones, they can override political differences and enable common ground along the same strategic path.

A new war of corridors unfolds in the Middle East

On one side lies IMEC (India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor), planned to extend from India through the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel to Europe. On the other stands the Development Road, which aims to link the Persian Gulf across Iraq to Türkiye, and onward to Europe.

These two undertakings are, of course, far more than mere transport projects. They represent two divergent geopolitical answers to where the future flow of trade and energy between Asia and Europe will traverse; for Türkiye, this issue is of vital importance.

If a corridor system taking shape to Türkiye’s south, beyond Ankara’s orbit, becomes permanent, Türkiye could forfeit not only an economic opportunity but also a substantial portion of its strategic centrality in the Middle East. It is through this prism that the Mecca Alliance must be evaluated.

Türkiye’s seat at the same table with Saudi Arabia signifies more than military solidarity. Riyadh and Ankara must sit together to avoid exclusion from the region’s emergent security and economic architecture, for the security of a corridor and the corridor itself are no longer separate matters.

The Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandab, and the Suez Canal are links in the very same chain. A security crisis in one directly impacts the others. While the vulnerability of Hormuz makes alternative export routes for Gulf oil indispensable, instability across the Red Sea heightens the strategic cost of Suez.

Saudi Arabia’s alternative pipelines connecting its eastern oil fields to Red Sea terminals are therefore not merely energy infrastructure; they are strategic bypasses mitigating dependence on Hormuz.

For Türkiye, the Development Road fulfills the same function across a broader geography. Stretching from the Persian Gulf through Iraq to Türkiye, and from Türkiye into Europe, this artery possesses the potential to forge a new overland backbone connecting the Gulf to the Mediterranean and Europe. As security concerns in the Red Sea mount and the vulnerability of Suez deepens, the value of this route rises accordingly.

The Hejaz Railway: Revived once again

The return of the Hejaz Railway to the regional agenda signifies far more than mere nostalgia. Once linking Istanbul to Damascus, Amman, and the Hejaz, the railway served as one of the primary transport and logistical arteries of the Ottoman geography.

Reviving the idea of the Hejaz Railway could become the emblem of Türkiye’s drive to reimagine its historical transport connections between the Gulf, the Hejaz, and the Levant through modern rail, energy, and logistics networks.

The objective here is not to restore the past, but to transpose the strategic logic of that historical geographical linkage into the twenty-first century. For this reason, Türkiye’s role in the Mecca Alliance and the resurgence of the Hejaz Railway project must be viewed as components of the same overarching picture.

Corridors do not consist solely of energy pipelines. Railways, ports, highways, electrical interconnectors, logistical hubs, and security architectures are all facets of the same geopolitical grid, and safeguarding these networks requires political alliances.

Herein lies the strategic significance of Saudi Arabia and Türkiye sitting at the same table in Mecca, even at a juncture when their views on Syria diverge.

Ankara and Riyadh do not need to agree on every subject. Yet neither wishes to see the new map of the Middle East drawn to its detriment. Türkiye’s aim is not to build an anti-bloc against any specific country alongside Saudi Arabia; rather, the goal is to avoid exclusion from the future energy and trade systems of the Middle East, while securing a decisive voice in establishing their security architecture.

Hence, for Türkiye, the Mecca Alliance is far more than a simple defence pact. Securing the Development Road, shielding Gulf energy corridors, stabilising the Red Sea, rethinking connections across the Hejaz and the Levant, and bolstering trade corridors reaching Europe all intersect within this single strategic equation.

In this equation, Türkiye’s foremost advantage remains its geography. Ankara sits at the northern terminus of the overland routes linking the Gulf to Europe; within NATO; and at the crossroads connecting the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Middle East.

Will Türkiye become one of the powers shaping the Middle East’s energy and trade architecture over the coming decades, or will it be reduced to a mere transit state traversed by routes designed by others? That question defines the true strategic significance of the Mecca Alliance for Ankara.

In the Middle East of tomorrow, it will be impossible to separate the corridor carrying energy, the security framework protecting that corridor, and the alliance constructing that security framework.

Whoever controls the corridor shapes commerce. Whoever guarantees the routes through which trade flows holds sway over the regional balance of power. This is the true dimension of the contest currently underway in the Middle East.

A succession of distinct and largely mutually exclusive ambitions are competing for dominance in the current climate: India’s linkage to Europe, the Gulf’s new economic horizons, Saudi Arabia’s alternative energy routes, the security crisis in the Red Sea, the strategic weight of Hormuz, and Türkiye’s aspiration to open outward to Europe via the Development Road. Ironically, perhaps, the conflict that will decide which corridor underpins global stability has already begun, and it will likely continue spreading to new fronts. Regrettably, the fires in our region appear poised to intensify long before they abate.