When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened Trump by saying his government will seek “new friends and allies,” everyone (including me) thought he was bluffing.

“Before it is too late, Washington must give up the misguided notion that our relationship can be asymmetrical and come to terms with the fact that Turkey has alternatives,” Erdoğan said during the speech at Unye on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, according to Reuters.

“Failure to reverse this trend of unilateralism and disrespect will require us to start looking for new friends and allies,” said Erdoğan.

Since neither China nor Russia stepped up, it seemed like a very empty bluff.

And then this happened.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has found a benefactor to help pull Turkey from the brink of a financial crisis as Qatar promised to invest $15 billion in the country.
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With the pledge, Turkey is reaping the rewards of standing by its wealthy Arab ally while Gulf neighbors led by Saudi Arabia cut off diplomatic ties with Qatar last year. Since tightening his grip on power in June elections, Erdogan’s relations with the U.S., a NATO ally, have deteriorated.

"That Turkish support for Qatar during the stand-off with Saudi Arabia finally paid off,” Tim Ash, a senior emerging-market strategist at BlueBay Asset Management LLC in London, said by email. “Let’s see if the Chinese and Russians put some money on the table."

Qatar was not even on my radar. I had nearly forgotten that Turkey sent troops to Qatar, even when the Saudis threatened military action against Qatar.
We appear to be looking at a whole new power alliance.

With the Turkish currency now stable again, Chinese and Russian investors might return.
That would leave Washington out in the cold, with relations permanently damaged and the entire continent of Asia falling outside of our influence.

Almost unnoticed was the reaction of Pakistan, which expressed solidarity with Turkey.
Just days earlier Pakistan officially left the U.S. sphere of influence.

Pakistan has wrapped up a groundbreaking contract with Russia that would, for the first time, open doors for Russian military training of Pakistani army officers.

The rare deal comes amid deteriorating relations between Islamabad and the United States, which has resulted in the halt of all military exchange programs with Pakistan and left a void that Moscow has stepped in to fill.
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The Islamabad-Moscow security partnership has strengthened and expanded since late 2014, when the two former rivals signed their defense cooperation agreement.

Ya think that fact that we bombed Pakistan for 15 years has something to do with this?