Turkey lambasts US move to end special trade status

Turkey's trade minister on Tuesday said US plans to end the preferential trade status granted to Turkey conflicted with the NATO allies' push to increase commercial exchanges.

"This decision contradicts our mutual objective of reaching bilateral trade volume of $75 billion... The decision will also negatively affect US small and medium-sized enterprises and manufacturers," Ruhsar Pekcan said on Twitter.

"We still would like to pursue our target of increasing our bilateral trade with the US who we see as our strategic partner, without losing any momentum," she said.

The United States Trade Representative's Office said Monday that Washington intended to end "India's and Turkey's designations as beneficiary developing countries under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program."