What the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity means for the South Caucasus – and for the people living there

Karajan town with the Zangezur mountain range seen from the Meghri Pass in Armenia. Photo: Kirill Skorobogatko / Shutterstock

At Armenia’s southernmost edge, just a few kilometres away from the Iranian border, Meghri’s railway station has been silent for over 30 years. In Soviet times, the small town was a crucial intersection in Armenia’s domestic and regional connectivity – linking the capital city Yerevan to the south, and further to Baku, in Azerbaijan. In the early 1990s, the First Nagorno-Karabakh war and the Soviet Union’s collapse interrupted all communication between the two neighbours, leaving Meghri isolated. As I visit the abandoned railway station in October 2025, only the rusting remains of Soviet wagons and faded travel documents testify to its past connectivity. Railway tracks have been dismantled and sold as scrap metal, while most Soviet factories around Meghri have closed down. It is hard to imagine this place becoming a hub for regional and international trade. However, this is exactly where the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity – also known as TRIPP – is set to run.

Peace through connectivity?

On August 8th 2025, US President Donald Trump mediated a long-awaited breakthrough between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Meeting in Washington under US auspices, the two leaders signed a Joint Declaration committing to formally end 37 years of conflict, establish diplomatic relations, and foster regional cooperation. Central to the deal is the development of a 43-kilometre-long strategic transit corridor – the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP). The TRIPP would reopen long-sealed borders between the two countries, connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave (currently only reachable by air or via Iran) through Armenia’s Syunik province, and onward to Turkey. A company majority-owned by the US will be granted 49-year development rights over the corridor, which will be extendable by another 50 years.

The TRIPP must be understood within the changing geopolitical context of the South Caucasus. Azerbaijan’s victory in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 have shifted the balance of power in the region through a waning of Russian influence, the more assertive foreign policy posture of Azerbaijan, and Armenia’s progressive turn to the West. The region’s strategic importance for global trade and energy flows has also grown. This is due to the South Caucasus’ centrality to the so-called “Middle Corridor”. Although Trump has framed it as an economic project aligned with global connectivity agendas, the TRIPP signals an increase in western influence in the South Caucasus, which is viewed with suspicion by Russia and Iran. While not formally part of the deal, the European Union has expressed readiness to support the TRIPP, which aligns with Brussels’ Global Gateway, a competitor to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Beyond the strategic dimension, the TRIPP was celebrated by many as a pivotal step towards peace. In the South Caucasus, peace is increasingly articulated through the language of connectivity, corridors and logistics. This technical and depoliticized vocabulary, however, obscures the power relations, ambiguities and contestations that shape how infrastructural promises of “peace” and “prosperity” are leveraged, implemented and experienced on the ground.

Remains of Soviet trains at Meghri’s railway station. Photo: Laura Luciani

Syunik at the crossroads

The 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war put the spotlight on Armenia’s Syunik province, a borderland where connectivity projects intersect with conflict-driven insecurity and geopolitical competition. Since 2021, Azerbaijani border incursions have destabilized Syunik, disrupting the primary route linking Armenia with Iran – a vital connection for economic survival due to closed borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan. Ongoing since the 2020 ceasefire, negotiations for reopening borders and transport routes have stalled over questions of sovereignty: Baku has insisted on having extraterritorial control over a “Zangezur corridor” connecting Azerbaijan with Nakhchivan, which Yerevan and Tehran oppose as it threatens both Armenia’s sovereignty and Iran’s land link with its northern neighbour. As a result, Syunik has become a diplomatic hotspot, with repeated visits from western, Russian and Iranian officials and the opening of new missions. Azerbaijan’s full retaking of Nagorno-Karabakh and the forced exodus of the region’s entire Armenian population in September 2023, alongside continuous border escalations, have marred the normalization process. Nevertheless, clashes have ceased since the Washington summit.

Geopolitical calculations aside, the reopening of transport routes could have tangible benefits for citizens’ everyday lives in Syunik and particularly Meghri, where the effects of disconnection from the rest of Armenia are strong. The economy of Armenia’s farthest town is largely based on the fruit trade, sustained by fertile land and orchards of fig, pomegranate, quince and persimmons, as well as vineyards. During my visit, the persimmon season was in full swing: my host Mariam and her family spent their time peeling persimmons and hanging them to dry, a labour-intensive process requiring daily attention before the fruit can be sold wholesale. Mariam complained that prices for goods are strikingly higher in Meghri than in Yerevan. To be sold locally, many goods must first be transported to the capital city and then brought back nearly 400 kilometres to Meghri. In Soviet times, when the railroad running through Nakhchivan was operational, the journey to Yerevan took approximately three hours. Today, the only alternative route requires a seven-hour drive, and the added costs for fuel and travel are reflected in higher consumer prices.

In late 2023, the Armenian government announced plans to revive Meghri’s railway as a section of the so-called “North-South Corridor” that would reconnect Armenia to Azerbaijan and potentially onward to Russia, Iran and Turkey. This is part of the Crossroads of Peace, the government’s flagship initiative to unblock regional connections and open all transport routes by solving relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan – ultimately turning the South Caucasus into a hub of international cooperation and trade.

Drying persimmons in Meghri. Photo: Laura Luciani

A TRIPP out of Armenia’s deadlock

Armenian PM Pashinyan has welcomed the TRIPP’s alignment with the Crossroads of Peace, stressing its potential contribution to “closing the chapter of enmity” with Azerbaijan and shortening trade routes between Europe and Asia. Proponents of the TRIPP argue that it will help build mutual dependency between Armenia and Azerbaijan, reducing their rivalry and the risks of new wars. Critics claim instead that the Washington Declaration reflects a “victor’s peace”, pushing Armenia to make further concessions to Baku. Among others, as part of the peace deal Armenia has pledged to drop all international legal cases against Azerbaijan related to war crimes.

Overall, key questions still linger. These include the presence of Russian guards on the Armenian side of the Iranian border, including nearby the TRIPP’s expected construction site. Turkey and Azerbaijan have already built their part of the road that would run up to Armenia’s border. However, as the journalist Marut Vanyan told me in October 2025, “nobody understands what will happen in the 43 kilometres which are on Armenian soil.” The Washington Declaration promises that all infrastructure developed through the TRIPP will function under Armenia’s sovereignty and jurisdiction – a vision reinstated in the TRIPP Implementation Framework, jointly published by the US and Armenia in January 2026, although the document does not impose any legal commitment on the parties. Besides, the actual peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan has not yet been signed.

Expected to start in the second half of 2026, the TRIPP’s construction coincides with crucial parliamentary elections in Armenia. Ahead of the June vote, Pashinyan’s ruling party faces declining approval ratings, escalating conflict with the Armenian Apostolic Church, social tensions related to the integration of 100,000 Nagorno-Karabakh refugees, and concerns over democratic erosion. Moreover, the government’s bet on Armenia’s European trajectory – reflected in the adoption of a new Strategic Agenda for partnership and ongoing visa-free negotiations – is polarizing society. In this context, Pashinyan’s stakes in the TRIPP extend beyond infrastructure – they intertwine with a political project to legitimize controversial post-war reconfigurations. By normalizing relations with Azerbaijan, Pashinyan seeks to overcome Armenia’s long-standing regional isolation and diversify foreign policy by balancing between Russia and the West. Simultaneously, he pursues a redefined national ideology dubbed “Real Armenia”, relinquishing any claims to Nagorno-Karabakh, including displaced people’s right to return.

Infrastructural promises are leveraged both to align Armenia with western geopolitical and geoeconomic interests, and to discipline domestic political contestations. However, the hype around connectivity seems to make little sense to people on the ground.

The view from Meghri

Conversations with Meghri residents revealed a striking mistrust vis-à-vis the reopening of regional infrastructure and the TRIPP. “The Americans want Zangezur because of our minerals,” said Aram, a local resident. Syunik is of key industrial value to Armenia due to the presence of numerous mines developed under the Soviet Union and now mostly owned by foreign companies. The Implementation Framework states that the TRIPP will “bring raw materials, critical minerals, and rare earth metals to American markets”. This focus on extraction sharply contrasts with the government’s optimistic rhetoric, framing the TRIPP as a panacea for economic prosperity. As Vanyan remarked, “Look at Georgia: they have connectivity, but they didn’t become Dubai.”

Scepticism also accompanied the assumption that connectivity can generate peace, especially amidst a widespread sense of insecurity. “There can be no open roads without peace, but we have seen that the Azeris don’t want peace,” Aram continued. The idea of reopening borders does not evoke a more peaceful future, but is rather associated with fears, both anticipated and recollected from late Soviet times. “In 1987, tensions started between Armenians and Azeris. There was no open conflict until then, but relations were not smooth. The Azeris in Nakhchivan would throw stones at trains coming from Meghri. My husband was taken hostage on a train once,” recalled Anahit, another resident. New infrastructural projects and improved trade routes are seen as a “mixed blessing” in Meghri, simultaneously bringing economic potential and the psychological burden of instability. These perceptions are intensified by historically shaped understandings of Syunik as the country’s “backbone”. “It would be the death of Armenia if we lose these 43 kilometres of land,” stressed one local resident.

Since my visit, unprecedented developments in the reopening of regional connectivity have taken place. Most notably, this is clear regarding Baku’s decision to allow the consignment of wheat and other commercial goods destined to Armenia to transit through its territory, as well as repeated rail shipments of Azerbaijani fuel to Armenia. Still, while the focus is on import-export flows and freight control, cross-border interactions among local communities – on which everyday peace and reconciliation heavily depend – have remained absent for over three decades. Paradoxically, Azerbaijan’s land borders have been closed for civilian traffic since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began.

The TRIPP reflects the modus operandi visible in other conflict situations that Trump claims to have “solved” from Gaza to Ukraine. In this view, peace is pursued through bilateral (or trilateral, in this case) elite-level negotiations to obtain the most profitable business agreement – while sidelining questions of justice and leaving people on the ground to manage the uncertainty.

Multilingual signs near the Armenia-Iran border crossing. Photo: Laura Luciani

The ambiguous road ahead

Long seen as Russia’s “backyard”, or a field of geopolitical rivalry, the South Caucasus is increasingly imagined as a marketplace for regional and global powers, where peace is framed through foreign investment flows, corridors, and connectivity strategies. In this context, infrastructural projects like the TRIPP become a tool of pacification: a way to stabilize geopolitically contested spaces and render them governable and investable. Local governments are not just passive recipients of hegemonic designs but actively partake in leveraging connectivity to pursue their own geopolitical goals.

In Armenia’s borderlands, these future-oriented agendas coexist uneasily with legacies of conflict and displacement that continue to shape how peace is understood and desired. While government narratives insist that the war is over, urging citizens to think ahead, local reactions are mixed. A somewhat optimistic grocery shop owner in Meghri shared his hopes that Armenia would soon join the EU. On social media, Anahit recounted, with a laugh, posts about fears that “soon we’ll give away Meghri as we gave away Artsakh” were being interjected by more down-to-earth comments such as “We’re looking for people to help peel the persimmons.”

Far from delivering a settled “peace and prosperity”, the TRIPP opens a space for ambiguity in which global power shifts, national political projects, and local socio-economic futures remain in flux. In the absence of tangible change on the ground – and with no Amerikatsi yet in sight – women in Meghri keep looking after persimmons as a way to stay grounded in uncertain times.

This article was first published by Ghent Institute for International and European Studies

Laura Luciani is a postdoctoral researcher with the Ghent Institute for International and European Studies (GIES) and an affiliated researcher at the Research Centre for Democratic Futures of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). Her current research explores everyday experiences of (in)security amidst geopolitical shifts in the South Caucasus. 

Armenia, Azerbaijan, South Caucasus, TRIPP