BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 12. The Middle Corridor and the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP) are forming a strategic alternative to vulnerable routes passing through the Black Sea, Trend reports, citing the New Lines Institute.
According to the institute, the combined effect of the announcement in August 2025 regarding the ninety-nine-year lease of TRIPP and Azerbaijan obtaining full participant status in consultative meetings of Central Asian countries has strengthened institutional and diplomatic support for the Middle Corridor.
“The expansion of the corridor’s geopolitical footprint – now spanning Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and linking to European and Turkish markets – increases the incentive for coordinated infrastructure and regulatory upgrades, border crossing harmonization, and multimodal logistics planning. For Kazakhstan, this means its investments in rail, logistics, and port infrastructure are not just nationally beneficial – they become essential to a larger, more integrated Eurasian trade network,” the report states.
According to the information, TRIPP should be viewed not merely as a regional transit route or even as a geopolitical breakthrough strengthening the United States presence in the region and promoting projects in a previously underutilized area. Its geoeconomic significance is much broader, as an independent corridor with considerable strategic impact, especially when integrated with the Middle Corridor and the emerging transport connectivity architecture of Central Asia. Although its physical length may be relatively modest by Eurasian transport standards, its strategic importance is disproportionately large.
In essence, TRIPP represents a new east-west land bridge through Armenia’s southern province, linking mainland Azerbaijan with Nakhchivan, Türkiye, and further to European markets. However, its true value becomes evident when it is considered not as a standalone Caucasus project, but as the western branch of the Middle Corridor, directly connecting Kazakh hubs on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, such as Atyrau and Aktau, with Anatolia and the Mediterranean basin.
The report notes that although geographically TRIPP lies outside Central Asia, its long-term viability is inseparably linked to Kazakhstan’s role as a key pillar of the Middle Corridor.
“Over the past 15 years, Kazakhstan has invested approximately $35 billion of its own capital into rail, port, road, and digital logistics infrastructure,27 an investment scale unmatched elsewhere along the corridor. This sustained capital commitment transformed Kazakhstan into the principal structural anchor of Eurasian overland trade, enabling the rapid growth in cargo volumes that has recently seen Middle Corridor traffic increase by more than 60% year-on-year,” the center said.
On August 8, 2025, following a trilateral meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint declaration on ensuring peace between Baku and Yerevan and establishing transport links between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan. The project was named the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity.”
The Middle Corridor is a transport trade route passing through several countries in the region and connecting Asia with Europe. It serves as an alternative to the traditional Northern and Southern corridors.
The route begins in China and passes through Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. It then crosses the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Türkiye before reaching Europe. The Middle Corridor is a land-based route that bypasses longer maritime paths, linking eastern parts of Asia, including China, with Europe.
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