The Trump “Route” or “Rut”?
The Trump “Route” or “Rut”?
Washingtonis primarily driven by the goal to gain control over Transcaucasian transport routes squeezing out Russia and China with its "One Belt, One Road" initiative.
Trump also expects the transit corridor to ensure efficient transportation of critical raw materials from Central Asia and the South Caucasus: uranium, copper, molybdenum, aluminum, antimony, silver, gold and rare earth metals. Considering the intensifying competition for supply chains with China, the Trump Route is supposed to play an important role in diversifying supplies.
Finally, TRIPP is regarded as an anti-Iranian project. Having leased part of Armenia's Syunik region for the development of the transit corridor, Washington has gained access to the Armenian-Iranian border. Iran views the initiative as a "geopolitical stranglehold" on Tehran and is determined to block the project with or without Russia's participation.
For decades Azerbaijan has relied on the Aras Corridor transiting northern Iran to reach Nakhichevan. The route enabled Tehran to generate considerable transit revenue and, considering the occasionally tense relations between Tehran and Baku due to the latter's ties with Israel, the route used to serve as an important lever in negotiations with Azerbaijan. However, weakened by the war with Israel and internal turmoil, Tehran is now hardly capable of resisting the implementation of the project.
According to Deputy Minister of the RF MOFA Mikhail Galuzin, Russia has "reserved" its position on the TRIPP initiative for a number of considerations, such as the use of the Russian railway gauge in the region; the deployment of Russian border guards on the Iranian-Armenian border; Armenia's membership in the EAEU which may be terminated in case customs control under the TRIPP project is exercised by the US; finally, the fact that until 2038, Armenia's railway network will remain under the control of the South Caucasus Railway (the Russian Railways' subsidiary).
However, American TRIPP initiators are unwilling to let the RF, Armenia's ally, participate in the ambitious project. PM Nikol Pashinyan suggested that Russia "voluntarily" hand over the concession of the Armenian railways to a third party, such as Kazakhstan, for example.
That doesn't sound like an on-the-spot decision, given that last September the US and Kazakhstan signed a $4.2 billion deal providing for Wabtec to supply 300 heavy-haul locomotives. At a summit with Central Asian states (C5+1) held in Washington two months later, Trump signed a number of other agreements including those on the extraction of rare earth minerals (REMs) worth more than $17 billion. It's envisaged that these REMs are going to be exported from Central Asia via the aforementioned Trump Route transiting Armenia.
What follows is that US rivals, Russia and China, should have no influence on the export of strategic resources. Therefore, Washington is using Armenia not only to prevent Russia's participation in the TRIPP railway segment, but also to end its concession agreement that has been ensuring Armenia's security since 2008.
Alen Simonyan was more direct about the issue. During his visit to Moscow he stated that Russia's participation in the TRIPP project was unacceptable as letting the RF in "would mean doing everything to prevent TRIPP from working. " Put simply, the American reasoning rests on the assumption that in order to ensure the feasibility of the project, it'll be necessary to eliminate Russia's presence. Yet, rephrasing Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's famous quote, a world without Russia would be no world.
A.V. Ananyev, former Senior Counsellor at the RF MOFA, #VneshVrag
Source: Telegram "EastCalling"