ANALYSIS: US Eyes the “Trump Route” Through Armenia

A quiet but telling visit is on deck for Yerevan. A group of US lawmakers is expected in Armenia next week to talk through the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP) — a 42-kilometer stretch widely described as the Armenian segment of the Zangazur Corridor. Local reports say the delegation will dig into both the nuts and bolts (routing, financing, timelines) and the politics (who controls what, and how that reshapes regional trade). The meetings will be behind closed doors; official agendas haven’t dropped.

That secrecy fits the stakes. If it moves, TRIPP would redraw logistics in the South Caucasus, connecting mainland Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave through Armenian territory, then into Türkiye’s network. The corridor would bypass Russia and Iran — and, critically, Georgia — on some East-West routes. For Washington, it’s a signature follow-on to the August 8 US-brokered Armenia-Azerbaijan peace declaration. For everyone else, it’s a test of how far the region is willing to tilt toward a new Western-aligned transit reality.

Think of TRIPP as a high-stakes middle piece in a larger puzzle:

• Core concept: Move goods from Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan via southern Armenia, then into Türkiye, bolstering the Middle Corridor between Europe and Asia without routing through Russia or Iran.
• Armenia’s sovereignty: Despite viral chatter about a “99-year lease,” Iranian Ambassador to Armenia Mehdi Sobhani says the agreement language points to Armenian jurisdiction—Armenian passport control, customs, and security—paired with an operator model, not foreign ownership. In other words: management rights, not sovereignty transfer.
• On paper vs. on the ground: The August 8 declaration gestures at opening transport routes and winding down the moribund OSCE Minsk architecture. It doesn’t hard-code a “corridor” as a legal carve-out. Details remain to be negotiated—and that’s what makes next week’s US visit interesting.

The August 8 peace declaration, mediated in Washington, did two things at once. First, it lowered the risk of renewed Armenia-Azerbaijan fighting, creating political air cover for new infrastructure. Second, it signaled a broader US return to the South Caucasus as a convening power. That shift lands hardest in Georgia, where the ruling Georgian Dream has for years told voters the West is unreliable and war-hungry—while deepening ties with Russia and the PRC.

The narrative looks frayed. The US just midwifed a deal aimed at trade, not tanks. Washington has also sharpened criticism of Georgia’s human-rights trajectory. Meanwhile, American and European voices are warming to alternatives that dilute Georgia’s long-standing monopoly on regional transit. Former officials and analysts are blunt: if you can ship around Georgia, you will — especially if Tbilisi keeps inching toward Moscow and Beijing.

None of this means Georgia becomes irrelevant. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the South Caucasus gas line aren’t easily replaced. But in rail and road, time is the enemy. Georgia’s new East-West Highway is still unfinished after multiple extensions; portions of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars rail corridor remain under-utilized. Georgian experts warn that, even if TRIPP itself takes five to seven years to stand up, other Armenian routes could come online earlier. If shippers get reliable alternatives, Georgia’s leverage — and investor appeal — slips.

Georgian Dream’s counter has been geopolitical bargaining: accept us “as is,” or we’ll pivot East. That gambit gets tougher if the West has workable transit workarounds. In that world, it’s not Georgia threatening the West; it’s the West quietly hedging against Georgia.

Tehran initially bristled at talk of a US-linked corridor nudging up to its northern frontier. But after the August 8 declaration, Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said many concerns are “largely removed.” Why? Because the current concept — if Armenia keeps sovereign control — doesn’t slice the border or insert foreign security structures. Iran still backs the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) — a rival, Russia-leaning network from the Persian Gulf to the Black and Baltic Seas — and is hustling to deepen trade with Armenia (bridges at Nordouz, new rail links via Nakhchivan, 10 fresh cooperation agreements in August). The message: fine, build TRIPP — but don’t crowd out INSTC, and don’t touch Iran’s equities.

At the same time, Armenia is leveling up ties with China, announcing a strategic partnership during Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s China visit and pursuing a path — however winding — into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation alongside Azerbaijan. SCO accession requires unanimity, which gets complicated fast (think Armenia-Pakistan and India-Azerbaijan frictions). Still, the optics matter: Yerevan and Baku are both diversifying, plugging into multiple power centers even as they work under a US-mediated peace umbrella. That’s hedging, not bandwagoning.

The personalities and theatrics haven’t disappeared — Pashinyan reportedly snubbed Belarus’s Lukashenko at the SCO, then chatted amiably with Aliyev and Erdoğan; Baku and Islamabad traded shots at India; claims and counter-claims flew about who is blocking whose SCO bid. None of that derails TRIPP on its own. It does remind us that any corridor in the Caucasus is a political project first, engineering project second. Coalition-building matters as much as concrete pours.

What the US delegation will really be testing

• Armenian control and optics: Can Washington back a route that’s operationally efficient and clearly under Armenian sovereignty—customs, security, rule-of-law—reassuring both Yerevan and Tehran?
• Money, operators, and timelines: Who pays, who builds, who runs it? Is this a US-Armenian JV with multinational operators? What does risk insurance look like? How do you sequence construction with Azerbaijan’s Horadiz-Aghband rail build-out?
• Regional buy-in: It takes three to tango: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Türkiye. Iran must be at least not opposed. Georgia will lobby hard not to be sidelined. Quiet alignment — not public chest-beating—will decide viability.
• Security guarantees: Even with a peace declaration, investors price political risk. Expect the delegation to probe guardrails: dispute mechanisms, monitoring, and what happens if politics sour.

If deals lock in and Armenia can demonstrate sovereign control without geopolitical drama, portions could phase in alongside Azerbaijan’s rail. That five-to-seven-year Georgian estimate isn’t crazy — and should be Georgia’s wake-up call to finish its own upgrades. If TRIPP works as advertised, the South Caucasus becomes a multi-corridor space. Georgia keeps pipelines and a chunk of rail/road, but it’s no longer a monopoly. Armenia rebrands from landlocked to land-linked. Azerbaijan cements hub status. Türkiye, predictably, wins either way.

TRIPP isn’t just a road. It’s a litmus test for a new balance in the South Caucasus: US-brokered peace matched with practical, sovereignty-respecting infrastructure that loosens Moscow’s and Tehran’s grip without directly confronting them. Georgia’s leaders can still keep the country central — by finishing long-delayed projects and rebuilding Western trust. Iran can live with the plan if borders and jurisdiction stay intact. Armenia and Azerbaijan, improbably, have a shared incentive to make it real.

The US delegation won’t announce a ribbon-cutting. But if they leave Yerevan with converging answers on control, financing, and sequencing, TRIPP moves from political slogan to executable blueprint. And the map of Eurasian trade, slowly but surely, begins to change.