Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 9
By Elmira Tariverdiyeva – Trend:
Donald Trump, a construction businessman, has become the 45th US president. Time will show how his future presidency will affect the South Caucasus region as a whole and the US-Azerbaijan relations.
The US policy is more determined by a party, the nominee of which a president is, rather than the president himself. However, already now one can talk about a few key points of Trump’s presidency regarding the region.
It is no doubt that nothing will radically change for Georgia. Georgia has always been of interest to the US as a partner in the South Caucasus region, however, currently this interest is surely lower than during the presidency of ardently West-oriented Mikheil Saakashvili.
By maintaining smooth relations with Tbilisi, Washington can be sure that even if the relations with Russia are repaired, Georgia will continue to move towards the West, and that’s why Trump won’t take any special steps in respect of Tbilisi.
Of course, the failure of the Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton became a big disappointment for Yerevan. Clinton maintained quite close relations with the vast Armenian diaspora in the US.
However, the Democratic Party was not biased towards Armenia. Democratic President Barack Obama never uttered the Armenians’ desired word "genocide". As for Trump, he is indifferent towards Armenia and his party's policy towards Yerevan will remain rather cautious as towards the country which is an outpost of Russia in the region. In this case, the figure of the US president has no special importance.
Trump knows about Azerbaijan and knows it very well. Previously, Trump made investments in Azerbaijan and undoubtedly understands the investment attractiveness of the country.
Azerbaijan plays an important role for the West in terms of cooperation in the field of energy security. Moreover, the country carries out independent policy, focused on its own national interests.
Another positive aspect is that Trump administration will likely to focus on the US internal affairs is likely to less interfere in the internal affairs of other countries than the Obama administration.
By the way, less intervention from the US in the affairs of other countries, can help the world to be more stable.
Barack Obama who received the Nobel Peace Prize failed to achieve it.
As for the remaining issues, time will tell which forecasts turned out to be closer to the truth and which remained on the level of forecasts.
Elmira Tariverdiyeva is the head of Trend Agency’s Russian news service