Washington’s answer to China’s Belt and Road Initiative begins in Armenia, and Vice President JD Vance is in the South Caucasus to pave the way. The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) may serve as the foundation stone of a broader network of transportation and economic corridors designed to secure critical Eurasian supply chains for the United States and to counter Chinese and Russian influence. However, the region lies on the periphery of U.S. geopolitical engagement; therefore, TRIPP’s implementation will require pragmatic solutions and a return to realpolitik in order to avoid aggressive countermeasures by other regional powers.
The Race for the Eurasian Balkans: BRI vs. TRIPP
There is a vast landmass that Zbigniew Brzezinski famously described as the Eurasian Balkans, stretching from the Armenian Highlands in eastern Türkiye through the Caspian Sea, to the great mountain ranges bordering Russia to the south, and China to the west. Central Eurasia has emerged as a key arena of contemporary great-power competition among China, Russia, Iran, Türkiye, and, more recently, the United States. Beyond its strategic location—bordered by Afghanistan, Iran, and China—the region is exceptionally rich in natural resources. The Caspian Basin ranks among the world’s largest fossil fuel reserves, while Central Asia contains some of the globe’s most significant rare earth mineral deposits.
The region was formerly part of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire before that. Following the dissolution of the USSR in the 1990s, nations that regained their independence opened their economies to foreign investment, with China rapidly emerging as the region’s leading investor. Indeed, it was in Central Eurasia that China articulated its grand global strategy: the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In 2013, in Astana, Kazakhstan, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the Silk Road Economic Belt, which later evolved into Beijing’s flagship geopolitical project. Today, the BRI seeks to expand China’s economic and political reach from Latin America through Africa to Asia; since its inception, however, Central Eurasia has remained one of its primary focal points.
Regional states have been among the largest recipients of BRI funding, with Kazakhstan, in particular, standing out. In the first half of 2025, Kazakhstan became the world’s leading recipient of Chinese capital flows, attracting approximately USD 23 billion in just six months—more than three times the amount received by Thailand, the second-largest recipient. Since 2013, Central Eurasia has attracted over USD 100 billion in BRI investments, making it one of the initiative’s most important destinations. Most projects in the region focus on infrastructure—railways, highways, pipelines, border crossings, and ports—aimed at connecting Chinese industry not only to regional resources but also, through expanded transport links, to markets in the Middle East, Europe, and beyond.
The United States is now pursuing a revised grand strategy in Eurasia to counter China’s expanding influence on the continent. This strategy includes efforts to normalize relations with Russia, reduce commitments in Europe, expand the Abraham Accords in the Middle East, limit India’s strategic hedging, and reinforce U.S. dominance in the Indo-Pacific. Although Central Asia and the South Caucasus have historically occupied a marginal position in U.S. foreign policy thinking, this changed under the second Trump administration. In line with its new National Security Strategy, Washington seeks to secure access to critical supply chains and materials as a pillar of economic security in a global value chain landscape dominated by China. Accordingly, President Donald Trump invited the leaders of the five Central Asian states to the White House in November 2025 and announced a USD 20 billion investment package focused primarily on technology and critical mineral extraction. To ensure physical U.S. access to the region, however, a transit corridor must first be established—this is the intended role of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).
Build TRIPP, Not TRAP!
At first glance, TRIPP may appear to be a modest and relatively insignificant infrastructure project in a country of limited geostrategic weight: Armenia. The planned corridor between Azerbaijan and its autonomous exclave of Nakhchivan, running through southern Armenia, is a mere 42-kilometer route to be developed and secured by U.S. companies—a small fraction of the thousands of miles of trade routes under American oversight worldwide. Yet TRIPP differs fundamentally from conventional infrastructure projects. It could serve as the cornerstone of a broader geoeconomic and geopolitical strategy aimed at countering China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Eurasia. By securing U.S. access to Central Asia via Türkiye, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, the corridor could also become a strategically significant platform for maneuvering vis-à-vis Russia, Iran, and ultimately China.
TRIPP would run along the Armenia-Iran border, in some sections only a few hundred meters from Iranian territory—hence Tehran’s longstanding and vocal opposition. The timing of its announcement is notable: TRIPP was unveiled just over a month after Operation Midnight Hammer in the summer of 2025, during which the U.S. Air Force struck three Iranian nuclear sites. Moreover, the TRIPP Implementation Framework (TIF) was adopted by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan on January 13, 2026, amid the largest mass protests in Iran since the Islamic Revolution. These developments underscore the seriousness with which Washington approaches the initiative.
The TRIPP Implementation Framework demonstrates that the United States views the corridor as part of an “integrated system,” rather than a standalone 42-kilometer route. It envisions not only rail and highway connections but also oil and gas pipelines, electricity transmission lines, and fiber-optic networks, complemented by administrative facilities, utilities, and comprehensive safety and security systems. The project represents a long-term U.S. commitment: the jointly established American-Armenian TRIPP Development Company will receive development rights for an initial 49-year term, with an expected extension of an additional 50 years—a vision for the 22nd century.
On paper, TRIPP is a well-conceived plan to secure sustained American presence and interests in a region of growing geostrategic importance and to ensure Trans-Caspian connectivity amid intensifying great-power geoeconomic competition. It requires relatively limited financial investment, no military deployment, and could yield significant geopolitical dividends for both the United States and its regional partners. Even a 42-kilometer corridor has the potential to shift the regional balance of power westward and to facilitate an intraregional connectivity network capable of counterbalancing traditional and emerging routes controlled by Russia and China.
There are, however, some critical risks. TRIPP stands only a hair’s breadth away from becoming a “TRAP” for the United States and its regional partners. The South Caucasus remains deeply scarred by violent conflicts: Armenia and Azerbaijan have yet to sign a peace treaty, and no agreement is in sight between Georgia and Russia. Tensions in the Middle East are widely expected to escalate in 2026, and any such development could destabilize Iran’s immediate neighborhood—from Azerbaijan through Armenia to Türkiye—triggering a domino effect that reignites regional conflicts. Tehran is likely to respond to perceived threats in its immediate vicinity with overwhelming force, and it already views TRIPP as a strategic challenge. Similarly, decision-makers in the Kremlin regard the South Caucasus as an area of paramount importance to Russia’s security and great-power status, making substantial Russian countermeasures to expanded regional U.S. involvement highly probable. Russia retains significant political and economic leverage in Armenia, including its largest foreign military base, and has demonstrated its willingness to employ these instruments if deemed necessary. In short, the South Caucasus has long served as a battlefield for competing regional powers, and its limited geopolitical capacity may not withstand the pressures of renewed superpower rivalry.
Let’s Export Realpolitik!
The era of the liberal world order has ended; once again, realism shapes international relations. “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must,” wrote Thucydides two and a half millennia ago—a maxim that has characterized power relations ever since. Yet today’s dense web of international economic interdependence constrains the unchecked use of force and prevents the unmitigated dominance of the law of the jungle. Contemporary realpolitik does not signify the abandonment of pragmatism; rather, it reflects the growing primacy of pragmatic solutions over the ideological constraints of liberal internationalism.
For TRIPP to succeed, it must be implemented through flexible, pragmatic approaches to critical challenges and potential confrontations. This includes acknowledging and addressing Russian concerns about shifts in the regional balance of power through coordination and cooperation—ranging from procurement contracts for construction companies to policy alignment with institutions such as the Eurasian Development Bank. Such measures could ensure that TRIPP’s east–west axis does not undermine existing north–south connectivity. Interconnecting TRIPP to established transportation networks would further reduce perceptions of the corridor as an exclusive or potentially militarized conduit for NATO and its partners. Only through such calibrated strategies can assertive—or even aggressive—countermeasures be avoided, and only then can Trump’s Route to Asia’s Heartland be sustainably secured.
Dr. Péter Pál Kránitz is a Senior Research Fellow at the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs.
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