The opposition Lelo/Strong Georgia party has proposed naming the controversial Anaklia deep-sea port project after U.S. President Donald Trump, envisioning it as the “gateway of the Trump Route to the Western world,” amid concerns that a planned transit link between Armenia and Azerbaijan could bypass Georgia.
“Following Armenia-Azerbaijan [peace] agreement, a crucial transit route emerged in the South Caucasus, which has been called Trump Route,” Irakli Kupradze, Lelo’s Secretary General, announced during April 7 “special” briefing.
“This route must not bypass Georgia, and this can only be realized through the construction of the Anaklia port, which would be a logical continuation of the Trump Route,” he noted. “We call on all the stakeholders to name Anaklia port after Trump and make it the gateway for the Trump Route for the Western world, which will bring us security, Western investments, and economic prosperity.”
The construction of the Anaklia deep-sea port, a mega-project in western Georgia, has been stalled for years amid recurring controversies and uncertainties surrounding relations between the Georgian government and foreign investors.
The port has featured strongly in the discourse of Lelo, whose founder, Mamuka Khazaradze, was a key shareholder in Anaklia Development Consortium, a Georgian-American venture to which the port project was initially awarded before the government terminated the contract amid controversies in 2020.
Georgian authorities decided to revive the project as Georgia’s “Middle Corridor” transit potential regained prominence amid Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine. The government took a 51% stake and, in 2024, picked a Sino-Singaporean consortium to develop the project. Also in 2024, Belgian company Jan De Nul was awarded the tender to carry out the maritime infrastructure work for the port. However, observers have pointed out that the talks with the Chinese investor have stalled since, with the deal yet to be completed.
Critics of the Georgian government have repeatedly expressed concern that the Georgian Dream authorities are missing opportunities through the country’s growing isolation from the West, suggesting that the United States may be interested in the port amid competition with China and its stated interest in the South Caucasus’s transit potential.
The worries intensified amid the planned Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), a transit project announced as part of a U.S.-brokered peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The route is set to connect mainland Azerbaijan with its Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic through southern Armenia and, via that route, provide access to Armenia and Turkey while bypassing Georgia.
Observers have worried it could undermine Tbilisi’s widely promoted role as a Middle Corridor.
While it remains unclear how much the current Trump administration has focused on the port project, recent developments may point to continued U.S. interest in Georgia’s transit role despite largely frozen bilateral ties between Tbilisi and Washington.
In November 2025, Jonathan Askonas, Senior Advisor at the U.S. State Department, visited Georgia to discuss the Trump Route; in March 2026, Peter Andreoli, a representative of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, also visited Georgia, holding meetings with various groups and visiting Anaklia port construction as part of his trip.
Shortly afterwards, on March 30, the U.S. State Department reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze spoke on the phone, the first such contact since the suspension of strategic partnership in 2024, to discuss “areas of mutual interest,” including “security in the Caucasus and Black Sea region.”
“Anaklia Deep Sea Port project, like Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, is the single large-scale idea which is in full alignment with the declared strategic priorities of the United States and President Trump,” Kupradze said in a briefing. “The U.S. interest toward this project has not waned.”
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