Turkey and Pakistan’s boycott of French products backfire as Saudi Arabia steps in

Amid consistent terror attacks and brutal killing of French people, French President Emmanuel Macron’s defense of the Prophet Mohammed cartoons and his temperament to fight the radical Islamist terrorism has now led to a new geopolitical tussle with Muslim-majority countries boycotting French products.

The campaign is being spearheaded by Turkey and Pakistan, who have urged Muslims worldwide to boycott products of the country.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan even went on to say, “The person in charge of France has lost his way. He goes on about Erdogan all day. Look at yourself first and where you are going…he is a case and he really must be checked up.”

In a show of support to Turkey, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan tweeted that Macron chose “to encourage Islamophobia by attacking Islam rather than the terrorists” adding that Macron chose “to deliberately provoke Muslims, including own citizens.”

In Pakistan, boycott France products has been trending on Twitter. Pakistanis have been aggressively trending several hashtags over social media platforms, urging people to boycott French products, abusing the French President, and threatening French citizens.

Besides Pakistani citizens staying all over the world launched a global campaign to boycott French products. Many prominent Pakistani Twitter handles spat venom on the French President and urged Muslims worldwide to boycott products of the country.

However, the plan backfired as Saudi Arabia started its own campaign to boycott Turkish products instead. In an informal campaign, Saudi shops and supermarkets have boycotted Turkish goods and replaced Turkish items with the Greek ones.

Expressing solidarity with Greece on Turkish aggression as well as denoting the availability of Greek products in their stores, Saudi traders hung Greek flags outside their establishments.

The Saudi citizens have taken up a comprehensive campaign against Turkey on the basis of three principles – No investment, no imports and no tourism.

Besides boycotting local products made in Turkey, Saudi citizens are also boycotting the products of international brands produced in Turkey. Such a boycott might turn Turkey into a hostile investment destination and thereby compelling companies to pull out their investments from the country.

Saudi Arabia has been one of the biggest markets for import of Turkish products. Besides, Turkey also uses the country as a transit point to trade its goods elsewhere in the region. Hence, the boycott by Saudi citizens, if continued for long, might prove costly for Turkey.

If current developments are to be noticed, then the strong resolve of Macron and the retaliation by Saudi citizens might impact the economies of Turkey and Pakistan, which are already not in a very good state.

Pakistan’s desperate jump at Erdogan’s anti-French rhetoric and unwarranted threats from the Pakistani leadership and elites might have added to the displeasure of Saudi Arabia, which has been disgruntled on Pakistan’s support of unilaterally projecting Erdogan as the tallest leader of the Ummah.