Turkey’s economy has improved, but its foreign policy is still messy

FOR MOST countries, a 10% drop in the currency’s dollar value in just over fivemonths would be cause for alarm. For Turkey, it is a respite. After years of lending and spending, the country’s new economic team, appointed after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s in May, is putting the house in order. The , which previously stoked inflation with cheap money, has raised interest rates by a whopping 31.5 percentage points since June. Economic growth has dipped as a result, but the inflation forecast has improved. Prices in November were 62% higher than a year earlier, but the monthly inflation rate has been falling, from a white-hot 9% in July and August to somewhat over 3% in recent months. The Turkish lira, which lost nearly 30% against the dollar in the first half of the year, continues to depreciate, but much more slowly.