U.S. President Donald Trump endorsed Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Wednesday evening, calling him “a great friend and leader” ahead of the country’s parliamentary elections on June 7.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “Nikol completely shares my vision of PEACE and PROSPERITY for Armenia and the entire South Caucasus region … Nikol has my COMPLETE and TOTAL Endorsement for Re-Election on June 7, 2026.”
Armenia is pivoting toward the West as frustration grows with longtime ally Russia. The relationship with Moscow has worsened since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In 2024, prosecutors in Armenia said Russia tried to overthrow its pro-Western government by staging a coup. In late 2024, Armenia froze its CSTO membership, a Russian regional counterweight to NATO, after disappointment at the Moscow-led bloc not supporting Yerevan in the Nagorno-Karabakh war.
Armenia has long been shaped by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan, which simmered for decades. The mountainous region is situated in Azerbaijan but was historically populated and governed mostly by ethnic Armenians. In 2023, Azerbaijan retook the region in a military offensive that forced more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee.
Trump invited Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Pashinyan to the White House in August last year to sign a peace agreement and bolster his own image as a peacemaker.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to Yerevan on Tuesday to sign a strategic partnership agreement between the two countries.
Trump added in his Truth Social post: “Soon, the United States and Armenia will break ground together on the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), which will transform the South Caucasus, and help our wonderful American Energy Companies gain access from Central Asia all the way to the United States.”
TRIPP, a transit, rail and road project, is seeking to connect Central Asia to Europe while maintaining peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Washington also hopes to boost employment in the region.
The EU held a summit in early May in Armenia, which has tentative designs on joining the bloc.