It's never a good idea to negotiate with a hostage-taker, but when it's a NATO ally, there isn't much choice.
The Trump administration has been trying to get back a Christian pastor detained in Turkey since October 2016, and when a possible deal at the sidelines of the NATO summit fell through, decided to drop the hammer.
A couple of weeks ago, the administration sanctioned Turkey's justice and interior ministers — remember, these are top officials of a fellow NATO country. The action hit the Turkish currency and stock market hard. Then President Donald Trump intervened in his inimitable style, with a tweet promising a doubling of aluminum and steel tariffs against the country and pointedly noting the drop in the value of the lira.