America's New South Caucasus Corridor: Stakes for China, Russia, and Beyond

The Diplomat

3 days ago

U.S. President Donald Trump (center) signs a trilateral joint declaration with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan (left) and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia (right), in the State Dining Room of the White House, Aug. 8, 2025,
On August 8, the White House became the unlikely stage for one of the most consequential diplomatic events in the post-Soviet space. U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for a peace agreement that could mark the beginning of a structural peace between two states locked in decades of hostility.
The proposed framework goes beyond ending a long-running territorial dispute: it envisions a U.S.-managed transport corridor running through Armenia's Syunik province, linking Azerbaijan's mainland to its Nakhichevan exclave. While hailed as a peace initiative, this move represents far more than conflict resolution — it is a calculated U.S. push into the South Caucasus, a region traditionally dominated by Russia and increasingly courted by China, Iran, and Turkiye.
The Armenia-U.S. Strategic Partnership Charter signed on January 15, 2025 laid the groundwork. This agreement pledged U.S. support for Armenia's sovereignty, border integrity, and democratic reforms, while opening avenues for cooperation in defense, economic development, energy, and technology. For Yerevan, disillusioned with Moscow's failure to protect Armenian interests in the 2020 and 2023 Nagorno-Karabakh crises, it was a pivot westward. For Washington, it was a foothold at the intersection of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East – a location ripe for reshaping regional connectivity in ways that sideline its strategic rivals.
Central to this agenda is Armenia's 'Crossroads of Peace' initiative, a plan to reopen Soviet-era transport links and turn the country into a transit hub between the Black Sea, Mediterranean, Caspian, and Persian Gulf. It is positioned as complementary to the International North–South Transport Corridor, a multimodal network of ship, rail, and road routes for moving freight between Azerbaijan, Central Asia, Europe, India, Iran, and Russia. The principles of Armenia's initiative – full respect for sovereignty, reciprocal access, and equal treatment – are designed to avoid the extraterritorial control arrangements favored by Baku's 'Zangezur Corridor' concept, which gives Azerbaijan unimpeded access to Nakhchivan region without Armenian checkpoints. By backing the Armenian vision, the United States signaled support for infrastructure free from Russian or Chinese influences, and for a regional order in which Western commercial and political standards prevail.
The breakthrough came with the proposal for the 'Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity' (TRIPP). This corridor would remain under Armenian legal jurisdiction but be developed and operated by a U.S.-led consortium. Azerbaijan would gain its land link to Nakhichevan and, through Turkiye, to broader markets – a long-standing strategic objective – while Armenia would secure both sovereignty guarantees and new transit revenues. U.S. oversight for up to 99 years, in theory, would ensure the route's neutrality and continuity even in times of tension.
Yet the strategic implications extend far beyond logistics.
For China, the U.S. plan is a mixed blessing. Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative already threads through the South Caucasus via the 'Middle Corridor' that links China to Europe through Central Asia, the Caspian, and the South Caucasus, especially with the groundbreaking of the long-planned China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway last December. Any new east-west route could, in principle, complement these ambitions. But a U.S.-controlled corridor threatens to dilute China's influence, impose foreign regulatory oversight, and potentially serve as a chokepoint in a crisis.
While Beijing has reacted cautiously in public – endorsing peace and territorial integrity – the likely response will be to double down on relationships with Azerbaijan and Turkiye, invest in alternative transit infrastructure, and ensure Chinese cargo is not hostage to U.S. strategic calculations. During Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's April visit to Beijing, China upgraded the bilateral relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Meanwhile, despite the Uyghur issue, trade imbalance, and strategic competition for influence in the region, China and Turkiye have maintained a Strategic Cooperation Relationship and bilateral intergovernmental cooperation mechanisms since 2010.
Russia's reaction to TRIPP is more publicly defensive. The South Caucasus has been an important component of Moscow's near-abroad strategy since the collapse of the Soviet Union, with Russian troops and peacekeepers long serving as guarantors – and gatekeepers – in the region. The sight of Washington brokering a peace accord between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and assuming operational development rights over the strategic corridor, is a direct affront to that legacy and marks a palpable erosion of Russian influence in the region.
Publicly, Russia has refrained from obstructing the accord, cognizant that overt opposition could alienate both Baku and Yerevan. Russian officials have largely stayed muted while the United States claims exclusive development rights to the corridor, an arrangement that significantly sidesteps Moscow's traditional mediation role.
Privately, however, Moscow is unlikely to concede its influence willingly. Expect Russia to push for joint administration of the corridor – seeking a say in its governance to safeguard its strategic stakes – or to deepen Armenia's economic and security integration within Russia-led institutions such as the CSTO and the Eurasian Economic Union. Russia remains the principal arms supplier to Yerevan and maintains a substantial military base in Gyumri, though Armenian relations have notably cooled, given Moscow's tepid support during the 2023 Nagorno-Karabakh offensive and Pashinyan's public acknowledgment that relying solely on Russia was 'a strategic mistake.' Moreover, Moscow may also find common cause with Tehran in opposing 'foreign interference,' a diplomatic euphemism for keeping the West at arm's length.
Iran's reaction has been the most openly hostile. Sharing a border with Armenia's Syunik province, Tehran sees any corridor running through it as a strategic red line – especially if managed by the United States. The fear is twofold: economic marginalization, if north-south trade routes bypass Iranian territory; and geopolitical encirclement, if U.S. and Israeli influence reaches directly onto Iran's northern border.
Iranian officials have backed Armenia's sovereignty-based 'Crossroads of Peace' but reject U.S. involvement, instead promoting alternatives like the North–South Transport Corridor linking Russia to the Indian Ocean. For Tehran, keeping a hand on the region's transport networks is both an economic necessity and a security imperative. Nevertheless, given Iran's recent continuous setbacks in its Shia Crescent, and the 12-day war with Israel, plus mounting pressures from the Trump administration's tough stances, Tehran is unlikely to act on the issue immediately.
Turkiye, by contrast, has welcomed the development. Long aligned with Azerbaijan under the 'one nation, two states' slogan, Ankara supports any arrangement that gives Baku direct access to Nakhichevan and beyond. While it previously favored the fully Azerbaijani-controlled Zangezur Corridor, Turkey appears willing to accept U.S. management if it ensures reliable, checkpoint-free movement for goods and people. In fact, Ankara may see value in a U.S. presence that balances Russian and Iranian influence, provided Turkish commercial and geopolitical interests are secured.
This evolving geometry in the South Caucasus creates a new layer of the global power contest. For the United States, the corridor is not just about regional peace – it's a supply chain insurance policy, a geopolitical wedge against Russia and Iran, and a counterweight to Chinese logistics corridor diplomacy. For Armenia, it's a path out of isolation and into Western networks. For Azerbaijan, it's a compromise that trades some control for broader strategic and economic gains. But the deal also imports the broader China-Russia-U.S. rivalry into a fragile region, raising the stakes of any future disruption.
Three scenarios could unfold. In the best case, the corridor opens on schedule, tensions ease, and the South Caucasus becomes a genuine crossroads of trade and cooperation. This would showcase the U.S. capacity to deliver public goods, strengthening its hand in global infrastructure competition. In a second, more volatile outcome, domestic politics or security incidents derail the plan, giving Russia or China an opening to insert themselves as alternative guarantors. In the most complex scenario, the corridor operates but becomes one of several parallel routes, each aligned with different powers – an arrangement that would require delicate management to avoid turning trade lanes into geopolitical front lines.
To deliver success, Washington must invest in more than ribbon-cutting. Apart from a basic requirement of foreign policy consistency even across changing administrations, that means securing multilateral buy-in – from the EU, development banks, and possibly even cautious regional rivals – to make the corridor a shared economic lifeline rather than an exclusive Western asset. It also means delivering visible benefits to local communities along the route, so that the infrastructure is seen as a driver of prosperity, not just a chess piece in a great-power game.
The South Caucasus has rarely commanded sustained U.S. attention. But in a world where geography, infrastructure, and political alignment are increasingly intertwined, ignoring it is no longer an option. A single rail line in Syunik can ripple through the balance of influence among Washington, Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and Ankara. If managed wisely, the United States' new foothold could stabilize a volatile region and offer an alternative to the connectivity models of its strategic rivals. If mishandled, it could just as easily deepen divisions and draw the South Caucasus into the center of another global rivalry.
The stakes, quite literally, run along the tracks.