VP Vance’s timely TRIPP to the South Caucasus

Vice President JD Vance’s regional tour to Armenia and Azerbaijan this week — the highest level visit by an American official to the South Caucasus since Vice President Joe Biden went to Georgia in 2009 — demonstrates that Washington is not ignoring Yerevan and Baku and is taking an active role in their normalization process.

Vance’s stop in Armenia included an announcement that Yerevan has procured $11 million in U.S. defense systems — a first — in particular Shield AI’s V-BAT, an ISR unmanned aircraft system. It was also announced that the second stage of a groundbreaking AI supercomputer project led by Firebird, a U.S.-based AI cloud and infrastructure company, would commence after having secured American licensing for the sale and delivery of an additional 41,000 NVIDIA GB300 graphics processing units.

In addition, the Vice President and Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on the completion of negotiations on a 123 Agreement, which establishes a legally binding framework for peaceful nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and partner countries. The U.S. has emerged as a leading contender to replace Armenia’s aging Soviet-era nuclear power plant with small modular reactors, and this agreement helps pave the way to a decision in Washington’s favor. According to Vance, potential deals may include “up to $5 billion” in an initial agreement “plus an additional $4 billion in long-term support through fuel and maintenance contracts.”

While in Azerbaijan, Vance and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a Strategic Partnership Charter between the U.S. and Azerbaijan that covers regional connectivity, economic investment, and security and defense issues. In his public remarks, the Vice President noted that the U.S. is planning to “ship some new boats to Azerbaijan” to help with the protection of territorial waters.

Vance’s visit comes some six months after President Donald Trump hosted Pashinyan and Aliyev at the White House for a historic summit last August. The results of that gathering included American MOUs (Memorandum of Understanding) with each visiting delegation and the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers signing the already agreed text of their peace and normalization agreement.

In Washington last month, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan released a joint statement on the TRIPP (Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity) Implementation Framework, which begins to lay out the technical and regulatory components of the trade corridor which would connect Azerbaijan to Turkey through southern Armenia.

The Framework outlines a 49-year initial term for the joint development company, which will construct the transit, trade, energy and communications infrastructure for the new corridor. The U.S. will retain a 74% controlling stake and Armenia will hold the remaining 26%. A recent visit to Armenia by AECOM, an American engineering consulting firm, focused on beginning a feasibility study of the TRIPP project “to support Armenia’s long-term economic growth, connectivity, and regional integration,” according to the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan.

Since its announcement last August, the project has reinvigorated Washington’s engagements with and interests in the region. Those conversations continued during Vance’s visit to the region this week.

From Washington’s perspective, TRIPP fits into a broader strategic vision of an interconnected South Caucasus that can act as an American sponsored strategic artery linking Central Asia to Turkey and Europe—which is likely to prove an important corridor for critical trade and energy flows across Eurasia while avoiding Russian and Iranian territory.

The agreements have already brought some dividends to the region. Since last August’s meeting delivered Trump’s personal imprint onto the peace process, the likelihood of renewed war, or even violent flare ups, between Armenia and Azerbaijan has declined. Both Yerevan and Baku recognize that their countries are likely to reap significant economic and political benefit from the TRIPP project—not to mention that upsetting Washington would prove strategically unwise.

Recent shipments from Azerbaijan to Armenia via Georgia, while mostly symbolic, represents a modest breakthrough that may lead to greater dividends down the road if direct and reciprocal access to each other’s infrastructure networks is allowed. The re-opening of Armenia’s border with Turkey, closed since 1993, would also represent an important step in the direction of expanding regional interconnectedness.

For over 30 years the South Caucasus has largely been a region in name only, lacking the type of integration that could drive prosperity and help mitigate insecurity. Reincorporating Georgia, once the standard bearer of American engagement in the South Caucasus, into the budding regional economic architecture will be crucial to its long-term success. The recent Georgian delegation visit to Washington offers an encouraging signal that Tbilisi and Washington may reestablish pragmatic working relations. Last year’s trilateral meeting in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi between Deputy Foreign Ministers from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia was a positive development—and one that ought to be continued at the level of Foreign Ministers.

On the whole, while favorable conditions had been set before returning to office in January 2025, the Trump Administration ultimately succeeded where previous administrations had failed. Transforming those earlier successes into a long-term and stable U.S. policy in the South Caucasus will be equally as important. No less crucial will be ensuring that America’s involvement in this sensitive region does not lead to further destabilization.

There will undoubtedly be numerous external pitfalls along the way that must be delicately managed, most notably Russian and Iranian interests in the South Caucasus and concerns with the TRIPP project in particular.

In contrast to some fears that Washington is preparing to “grant” Russia a sphere of influence across the former Soviet Union, the U.S. appears instead to be demonstrating that it will respect the security red lines of the other great powers without abandoning America’s economic and political interests. Indeed, as one Russian columnist wrote “There is disappointment, annoyance, and a feeling of helplessness [in Moscow]. Because it is precisely in this region…that Russia’s position has noticeably sunk in recent years.”

For the U.S., this is indeed a fine line to walk, and its success will depend on prudent statesmanship that has been largely unfamiliar to the post-Cold War generation of America’s political elites. Vance’s trip to Armenia and Azerbaijan sends a strong signal that the U.S. attaches a newfound importance to the South Caucasus and the wider region, one that may endure for years to come.