Turkey signed a one-year contract in the amount of 2.4 million dollars with the American lobbying company “Ballard Partners”, which has strong ties to US President Donald Trump. This was reported on the “Middle East Eye” website, which is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood axis led by Turkey and Qatar. According to the report, the purpose of the contract is to promote the sale of F-35 aircraft to Ankara.
The leading figure at Ballard Partners is Brian Ballard, a well-known Republican Party fundraiser from Florida who worked on Trump’s presidential campaign. According to the report, the company’s agreement with the Turkish Ministry of Defense was signed on August 8 and includes a monthly salary of $200,000. As part of the contract, Ballard Partners will provide government relations and strategic consulting services.
This is not the first engagement of its kind between the parties. Already in 2017, Turkey purchased the services of the lobbying company for 1.5 million dollars, in a deal that was one of the first ever for Ballard Partners. At that time, the engagement dealt with the affair of the Turkish government bank “Halkbank”, which the American government accused of helping Iran circumvent the sanctions. This year, the US Department of Justice decided to drop those charges.
The Turkish solution to sanctions
Now an even more strategic issue is at stake. Turkey was kicked out of the F-35 program in 2019 following Erdogan’s insistence on purchasing S-400 air defense systems from Russia. As a result, sanctions were imposed against it under the CAATSA law, under which anyone who purchases high-quality defense technologies from Russia is considered a rival country of the USA and cannot purchase top-level products such as the F-35.
Now the Turks are examining the possibility of selling the existing S-400 systems to a third country, for example the United Arab Emirates, in the hope that this will allow Washington to return Turkey to the project – a step that Trump supports, despite the fear of harming regional air supremacy. “Middle East Eye” cited documents submitted to the US Department of Justice, according to which the Ballard Partners team includes the former Democratic congressman from Florida, Robert Wechsler. The latter is one of the founders of the US-Turkey relations lobby in the US Congress. At the same time, Wexler is recognized as a person with excellent connections with pro-Israel circles in Washington.
Another well-known figure in the lobbying company is Thomas Beaudry, who served as Trump’s assistant and as a senior director in the field of legislation at the American National Security Council until April 2025. He ended his position following the dismissal of the then National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz. It was reported in Bloomberg this year that the former employees of Ballard Partners include, for example, the current White House chief of staff, Susie Wills.
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