The United States does not yet have a strategic presence in the South Caucasus region. Only a potential business presence is being considered, but how it will be implemented in practice is still difficult to say. Political analyst Suren Sargsyan stated this while commenting on the prospects of the TRIPP communication project.
“The peculiarity of American business is that it reacts quickly to initiatives that offer real opportunities to make money. But so far, American businesses are not rushing into the region, because there is no clear understanding of what will happen. There is no interest in the project yet. If business presence is established, there is a high probability that it could transform into a strategic U.S. presence in the region, but at the moment this is not the case,” Sargsyan noted.
He added that at this stage most questions remain unanswered even for the authors of the initiative themselves, while ideas about how the communication will work are extremely vague. The expert admitted that contradictory comments from government officials and the high level of uncertainty create the impression that the Washington summit was aimed at solving only one task — to quickly provide Donald Trump with a “success story.”
“Due to the Ukrainian crisis, Trump has become a kind of target, and he needed at least some kind of success story to respond to criticism. My impression is that the document (the trilateral statement) was prepared in Washington, and the Armenian side had no time to properly review it or make adjustments. As a result, no one has a clear understanding of how all this will be put into practice,” Sargsyan emphasized, adding that for Trump the results of the trilateral meeting will only have a short-term effect.