JD Vance Paves the Way for Trump’s Route to the Asian Heartland: The American BRI Starts in Armenia

American Thinker ^ | 02/09/26 | Peter Kranitz

[SeekAndFind]

Washington’s answer to China’s Belt and Road Initiative begins in Armenia, and Vice President JD Vance is in the South Caucasus to pave the way. The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) may serve as the foundation stone of a broader network of transportation and economic corridors designed to secure critical Eurasian supply chains for the United States and to counter Chinese and Russian influence. However, the region lies on the periphery of U.S. geopolitical engagement; therefore, TRIPP’s implementation will require pragmatic solutions and a return to realpolitik in order to avoid aggressive countermeasures by other regional powers.

The Race for the Eurasian Balkans: BRI vs. TRIPP

There is a vast landmass that Zbigniew Brzezinski famously described as the Eurasian Balkans, stretching from the Armenian Highlands in eastern Türkiye through the Caspian Sea, to the great mountain ranges bordering Russia to the south, and China to the west.

Central Eurasia has emerged as a key arena of contemporary great-power competition among China, Russia, Iran, Türkiye, and, more recently, the United States. Beyond its strategic location—bordered by Afghanistan, Iran, and China—the region is exceptionally rich in natural resources. The Caspian Basin ranks among the world’s largest fossil fuel reserves, while Central Asia contains some of the globe’s most significant rare earth mineral deposits.

Indeed, it was in Central Eurasia that China articulated its grand global strategy: the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In 2013, in Astana, Kazakhstan, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the Silk Road Economic Belt, which later evolved into Beijing’s flagship geopolitical project. Today, the BRI seeks to expand China’s economic and political reach from Latin America through Africa to Asia; since its inception, however, Central Eurasia has remained one of its primary focal points.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; China; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS: armenia; azerbaijan; beltandroad; bri; ccp; china; jdvance; minerals; russia; tripp; trump; turkey; vance

[SeekAndFind]

The United States is now pursuing a revised grand strategy in Eurasia to counter China’s expanding influence on the continent. This strategy includes efforts to normalize relations with Russia, reduce commitments in Europe, expand the Abraham Accords in the Middle East, limit India’s strategic hedging, and reinforce U.S. dominance in the Indo-Pacific. Although Central Asia and the South Caucasus have historically occupied a marginal position in U.S. foreign policy thinking, this changed under the second Trump administration.

In line with its new National Security Strategy, Washington seeks to secure access to critical supply chains and materials as a pillar of economic security in a global value chain landscape dominated by China. Accordingly, President Donald Trump invited the leaders of the five Central Asian states to the White House in November 2025 and announced a USD 20 billion investment package focused primarily on technology and critical mineral extraction.

[nwrep]

I doubt the US has the staying power with its see-saw Presidential power changes and whiplash policy changes with it.

[null and void]

It would be challenging.

Serious question, what system of governance would be more stable while preserving freedoms?

Don’t feel limited to any current system...

[nathanbedford]

A single turgid paragraph describing the buy-in of TRIPP along the underbelly of Russia, explains the motivation for the Trump administration's shameful sellout of Ukraine and its otherwise unaccountable accommodation of Russia:

For TRIPP to succeed, it must be implemented through flexible, pragmatic approaches to critical challenges and potential confrontations. This includes acknowledging and addressing Russian concerns about shifts in the regional balance of power through coordination and cooperation—ranging from procurement contracts for construction companies to policy alignment with institutions such as the Eurasian Development Bank. Such measures could ensure that TRIPP’s east–west axis does not undermine existing north–south connectivity. Interconnecting TRIPP to established transportation networks would further reduce perceptions of the corridor as an exclusive or potentially militarized conduit for NATO. and its partners. Only through such calibrated strategies can assertive—or even aggressive—countermeasures be avoided, and only then can Trump’s Route to Asia’s Heartland be sustainably secured. (emphasis supplied).

[Bobbyvotes]

Ukraine? The most corrupt country in Europe? Where Burdens made millions without any expertise? Ukraine needs a regime change more urgently than Iran.

[Bobbyvotes]

Bidens not burdens
This auto correct is crazy.

[nathanbedford]

Ukraine needs a regime change more urgently than Iran

Perhaps not as urgently as Minnesota.

[xp38]

Biden was a burden.

[nwrep]

Aristocratic elites bound by Christianity.

[nathanbedford]

These efforts by this administration to foreclose Russia and China from dominating the long Asian underbelly are to be complemented.

At the same time, those of us on this forum who have turned against American support of Ukraine and its valiant war of survival, should consider that little Ukraine has exposed the pathetic condition of Russia's conventional forces. A weak Russia makes JD Vance welcome.

If JD wants his efforts in this region to prosper, he should reconsider his ill-considered policy of betrayal toward Ukraine.

[newfreep]

Trump administration's shameful sellout of Ukraine and its otherwise unaccountable accommodation of Russia

We have another Zeeper exposing his support for Ukraine's cesspool of money laundering

[nathanbedford]

Currently, it is only Donald Trump who has arranged to profit from the war by selling arms indirectly to the Ukrainians, the very people whose loss of life in war he deplored before he decided to turn it into a business.

We are citizens of a country that has its own cesspools of corruption, starting with Minnesota, California, Illinois and New York. These are not just our abandoned allies, these are our bedfellows who are as corrupt as they come.

Do you think the countries along Russia's underbelly to whom JD Vance is currently delivering a Christmas list of goodies are free of corruption? Do you think Taiwan is free of corruption, Israel? Your fastidiousness about corruption in our allies is limited only to Ukraine. You strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.

There are many crucial reasons to support Ukraine that are hardly eclipsed by a myopic, hypocritical righteousness about corruption.

[newfreep]

Currently, it is only Donald Trump who has arranged to profit from the war

I stopped reading right there!

You have ZERO EVIDENCE that Donald J Trump received any financial gain.

NONE!

You leftwing RINO/Socialists are absolutely disgusting, so transparent...and with ZERO CREDIBILITY.

[dennisw]

Right finally! Russia gets aced out too. Right in their former backyard. Key is that Azerbaijan will be selling its oil- new gas pipelines direct to Europe. Kazakhstan can do this too.

Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have broken broken with Moscow

[nathanbedford]

How much evidence of corrupt or potentially corrupt dealings by President Trump's immediate family do you need to ease your "disgust" and awaken a conservative's God-given instinct to question unprecedented actions by this family and this administration?

Are you deaf, dumb, blind and utterly indifferent to allegations involving a Chinese billionaire, Justin Sun, whose SEC fraud case was suspended after he spent $20 million on Trump claim contest?

Or this: Wall Street Journal: Emirati investor bought stake in Trump family crypto firm ahead of AI chips deal with U.S. (this involves megabucks).

Or this: Eric Trump's $500 million deal with Abu Dhabi "spy Sheikh" directing $187 million to Trump family entities and the Witkoff family.

It is flat wrong to say there is no evidence. It is far more accurate to say there is no investigation.

Suddenly, Hunter Biden's little game in Ukraine looks like chicken feed compared to the literal billions that the Trump family has taken in - the only question being, was it done corruptly? Has it directly affected policy? We know there was a coincidence in near time between family gain and policy change.

An honest conservative abhors corruption at home as much as he does in Ukraine.

[newfreep]

How much evidence of corrupt or potentially corrupt dealings by President Trump's immediate family...

Dude, you're on the wrong forum with your psychotic leftwing marxist rantings and inability to grasp reality.

[nathanbedford]

Those conservatives who fancy themselves up to speed in real politic, should drop their purely reflexive opposition to Ukraine and consider all of the benefits this war has added to America's national security - and all the damage abandoning and betraying Ukraine might cause.

[nathanbedford]

Nothing more surely betrays weakness of argument than resort to personal attack to avoid dealing with facts.

[newfreep]

One cannot intelligently reason with someone (you) who lacks a grasp on reality and simply makes-up their “evidence”...just like a leftist kook.

Now slither back under your DNC rock.

[nathanbedford]

Again, resort to the ad hominem to avoid facts speaks for itself.

There is evidence, there are degrees of evidence and there is conclusive evidence. All I have stated is that there is evidence warranting an investigation of the myriad allegations of self-dealing by the Trump family. The amount of money involved is staggering, the implications for national security are frightening.

All of this discussion has arisen from the assertion on this thread that the alleged fact of corruption in Ukraine justifies betraying Ukraine. To simply brush off the allegations identifies the one "who lacks a grasp on reality," or one who lacks grasp of facts.

To refocus this discussion: This has arisen from the implication on this thread that the alleged fact of corruption in Ukraine justifies betraying Ukraine.