The White House's Armenia Strategy: Washington Marks the South Caucasus as Its Own Sphere of Interest

On May 26, 2026, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Yerevan, where he joined Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan in signing a Charter on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, initialing a framework agreement on the TRIPP transit corridor, and signing a memorandum on the extraction of critical minerals and rare earth elements.

Ten days before Armenia's parliamentary elections on June 7, 2026, the two sides concluded a package of agreements under which the U.S. government receives a controlling stake in the company operating the TRIPP transit corridor, while Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's government gains political backing from the democratic bloc ahead of the vote.

This marks the first case in the post-Soviet space in which the United States has launched a large-scale economic project that gives Washington direct leverage over a country while publicly identifying it as an area of special American interest.