Uganda was still trying to attract Turkish businesses just weeks before its relationship with Türkiye began to fall apart.
In July, the Türkiye Exporters Assembly, coordinated by Türkiye’s trade ministry, took a trade delegation to Kampala for business meetings with Ugandan companies.
In August, Uganda was still working to deepen commercial ties with Turkish businesses.
By September, Uganda had suspended all defence and military cooperation with Türkiye.
The immediate dispute is political. But Uganda’s growing commercial ties with Türkiye mean the consequences could extend into trade, investment and infrastructure.
The biggest test is the €2.7 billion ($3.1 billion) Malaba-Kampala Standard Gauge Railway, which Turkish contractor Yapı Merkezi was awarded in 2024. The project is intended to connect Uganda to Kenya’s railway network and the port of Mombasa.
That makes the dispute more than a bilateral quarrel. It shows how a political dispute between an African country and a Turkish partner can reach commercial networks that also connect Africa to Europe.
From political quarrel to economic dispute
The dispute has been building around Fred Lumbuye, a Ugandan political commentator living in Türkiye.
Ugandan authorities accuse Lumbuye of 15 criminal charges including incitement, harmful propaganda and computer-related crimes. On September 18, supporters of the Patriotic League of Uganda marched to the Turkish Embassy in Kampala demanding his extradition.
The following day, the Uganda People’s Defence Forces announced the suspension of all defence and military cooperation with Türkiye. The army did not specify the outstanding issues behind the decision or which programmes would be affected. It also did not directly link the suspension to the protest or Lumbuye.
The confrontation had been escalating for months. Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Uganda’s Chief of Defence Forces, had repeatedly criticised Türkiye over its handling of Lumbuye. He had also demanded $1 billion from Ankara over Uganda’s role in Somalia and threatened consequences for Turkish interests.
In June, Kainerugaba said Uganda had cancelled the contract for the Kampala-Malaba railway and would find another contractor.
That announcement added to what brought the economic relationship into dispute. It also created a problem for Uganda. The country was still pursuing Turkish investment when the political relationship began to deteriorate.
Türkiye has built a much bigger economic foothold in Uganda
Uganda’s trade with Türkiye is modest compared with its largest trading partners. But it has grown quickly.
Bilateral trade reached $160.5 million in 2025, more than twice the $75.1 million recorded in 2024. Turkish exports to Uganda were worth about $120 million, while Ugandan exports to Türkiye reached $40.5 million. More than 100 Turkish companies were also operating in Uganda by May.
The commercial push continued this year. The July trade delegation brought Turkish businesses from sectors including energy, food, construction, machinery, healthcare, agriculture and tourism to Kampala for meetings with Ugandan companies.
Türkiye’s interest in Uganda also sits inside a wider African strategy. Turkish exports to Africa reached $13.3 billion in the first seven months of 2026, up 12.6% from the same period a year earlier. Turkish contractors have also completed more than 2,000 projects across the continent, worth around $100 billion.
Uganda is therefore part of a wider effort to build trade and business relationships across African markets.
John Muhumuza, a Ugandan economist, says the relationship matters because Türkiye sits between African, European and Middle Eastern markets.
“Türkiye has become an important economic partner for African countries because of its position between Africa, Europe and the Middle East. A collapse in relations could complicate Uganda’s access to Turkish markets, investment and commercial networks that connect it to wider international markets. The longer the dispute continues, the bigger it develops into an economic one,” Muhumuza told Businessfront.
The concern is less about the size of Uganda’s trade with Türkiye than what the relationship has been becoming.
The $3 billion railway shows what is at stake
The Malaba-Kampala SGR is the clearest example of how the dispute could move from politics into business.
Uganda signed a $3 billion contract with Yapı Merkezi in October 2024 to build the 272-kilometre railway from Malaba, on the Kenyan border, to Kampala. It is intended to connect Uganda to Kenya’s SGR network and eventually to Mombasa, its main trade gateway.
The project is also part of the Northern Corridor, which links landlocked East African economies to the Kenyan port.
“The railway is not just a construction contract between Uganda and a Turkish company. It is an infrastructure project tied to Uganda’s trade with Kenya and the wider East African market. Any disruption would therefore have implications for transport costs, trade flows and Uganda’s access to regional markets,” Muhumuza said.
The project is now caught in the political dispute, and its status remains unclear. Kainerugaba’s June announcement created uncertainty over that structure. Although he said the contract had been cancelled, there was no clear confirmation from the ministry responsible for the railway.
If the contract is formally terminated, Uganda could have to find another contractor and revisit parts of a financing structure that has taken years to assemble. If Yapı Merkezi remains on the project, the dispute could still complicate its relationship with the Ugandan government and raise questions over the stability of future Turkish infrastructure deals.
For a project designed to connect Uganda more closely to East Africa’s trade network, the immediate issue is whether a political dispute with Türkiye will change the commercial arrangements behind the railway.
Uganda and Türkiye have more than one contract to lose
The railway is the largest exposed project, but the commercial relationship is wider.
Turkish companies were still looking for opportunities in Uganda this year. That creates a more difficult problem than a single cancelled contract. Existing investments may continue even when governments disagree. New investors, however, can wait.
There is no evidence of a broad Turkish corporate exit from Uganda. The more immediate risk is that companies become more cautious about new projects, demand stronger protections or delay decisions until the political dispute becomes clearer.
For Uganda, this comes at a time when it needs foreign capital and contractors for infrastructure and other sectors. For Turkish businesses, Uganda is one of several African markets where trade missions and investment promotion have been used to build longer-term commercial positions.
The damage, if it comes, may therefore be gradual. It could appear in fewer bids, delayed projects or a weaker pipeline of new investment.
Uganda’s problem is therefore not that Turkish companies will suddenly leave. It is whether political uncertainty changes the terms on which they are willing to stay and invest.
Could the fallout disrupt an Africa-Europe economic relationship?
Uganda’s dispute with Türkiye comes at a time when trade and investment links between Africa and Europe are becoming more important. The European Union remains Africa’s largest trading partner and biggest investor. About 30% of Africa’s goods exports in 2024, worth €176 billion, went to the EU.
This is where Uganda’s dispute with Türkiye could become more than a bilateral economic problem.
If the dispute continues and begins to affect trade, investment, transport links or other commercial arrangements, it could disrupt some of the channels through which African economies connect with Türkiye and, indirectly, with European markets.
The risk would not be an immediate collapse in Africa-Europe trade. Uganda alone is too small to cause that. The bigger worry is whether a prolonged dispute creates friction in the wider commercial network linking African economies to Türkiye.
David Arinze, a trade and investment analyst, says the concern is the position Türkiye occupies between the two regions.
“If a dispute between Uganda and Türkiye becomes prolonged and starts affecting trade and investment, the impact would first be felt by the two countries. But because Türkiye is so closely connected to European markets, any wider disruption to its economic activity in Africa could also affect the commercial links between Africa and Europe,” Arinze told Businessfront.
The longer the dispute lasts, the harder it becomes to treat it as an isolated political quarrel. A serious deterioration in Uganda-Türkiye relations could have effects beyond the two countries if it begins to change how African governments approach their economic relationships with Ankara.
If the dispute remains confined to diplomacy and security, its effect on Africa-Europe economic ties may remain limited. If it begins to affect trade, investment or infrastructure financing, Uganda could become an early example of how political tensions can travel through the economic networks connecting Africa, Türkiye and Europe.
