In his interview to Azerbaijani media on January 7 this year, President Aliyev touched upon the issue of the upcoming Trump administration, notably speaking about his positive expectations, up to the prospects of establishing strategic partnership relations. This statement was rather unexpected, given many recent tensions between Baku and Washington, including the spat with the U.S. Embassy and the Azerbaijani side’s refusal to hold a US-mediated meeting of foreign ministers with Armenia during the OSCE Summit in Malta. Back then, Azerbaijani MFA issued a statement saying that the four years of the Biden administration were “lost years” for the Azerbaijan-US relations.
However, this contrasting rhetoric shows that Baku has a different attitude to the new administration and doesn’t extend automatically the currently negative bilateral agenda into Trump’s presidential term. Indeed, the president-elect has already shown that his views of American interests and goals are quite different from his predecessor’s. What exactly does Azerbaijan expect from his next four-year cadence and what is its strategy likely to be?
In general, Donald Trump is believed to espouse a very pragmatic approach to foreign relations. Unlike his recent predecessors, he has never been eager to draw dividing lines in his foreign policy based on the partner countries’ democratic status and rarely misses an opportunity to pursue a dialogue. In 2018, Trump became the first ever leader to meet with his North Korean counterpart. As a former businessman particularly proud of his negotiating acumen, he has a strong preference for bilateral talks, which is in line with Baku’s foreign policy style prioritizing bilateral or other small formats to large multilateral ones. Trump’s “peace through strength” idea, as well as his inclination to reduce US foreign policy costs, means that he prefers to establish working partnerships with actors capable of exerting stabilizing influence in their regions and respective of American red lines.
For Azerbaijan, the country that has established itself as the regional leader and recently started to claim the status of a middle power, this creates opportunities for establishing a mutually beneficial partnership while keeping Washington at an arm’s length. Baku’s insistence on “keeping foreign powers away” from the regional politics should better fit Trump’s selective-engagement, low-cost approach than a rather interventionist stance associated with Democratic governments. Moreover, for a number of reasons Democratic elites have traditionally catered for Armenian interests more than Republicans, and the Biden administration has often been dubbed the most pro-Armenian one in history.
When it comes to the peace negotiations with Armenia, the most important issue on the Azerbaijani agenda, the new American presidency may bode interesting prospects. Trump likes to portray himself as the “president of peace”, viewing every US-assisted reconciliation agreement or just a meeting between rival states as a great photo opportunity and an image booster. A few days before his inauguration, Steven Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy pick, played a key role in getting an Israeli-Hamas ceasefire deal done, reportedly putting significant pressure on Israeli PM Netanyahu. The 47th president, and some other people on his team, have also been very outspoken about the need to stop the war in Ukraine in 2025. This is why Washington may be expected to exert pressure on Baku and Yerevan to speed up their talks, particularly as the lack of peace gives more leverage to Russia and Iran in the region.
For Azerbaijan, it can be a good opportunity too, as it has recently significantly strengthened its hand vis-a-vis Armenia while the latter has been increasingly ready to accept conditions put forward by Baku. Moreover, a successful deal could boost Azerbaijan’s stance in the region, increasing its importance for the U.S. In a recent article published at the Azerbaijani government-related outlet Caliber.az, the author suggests Trump may be willing to “convince Armenia’s leadership to fulfil all remaining reasonable demands of Azerbaijan”, citing also Türkiye’s growing role for the U.S. Middle East policy.
While some experts believe South Caucasus does not hold great importance for the new administration and even assume that it may leave it largely for Russia to deal with as part of the would-be “new world order”, if Moscow agrees to accept the US terms for stopping the war in Ukraine, such a prospect now seems unlikely. Iran which has already suffered a number of painful geopolitical defeats in 2024, should loom large on the U.S. foreign policy agenda, so much that President Pezeshkian a few days ago made a statement that his country “had never plotted to assassinate Donald Trump”, nor has any plans to do so. If Washington really intends to scale up pressure on Tehran, cultivating relations with Baku shall be a part of such policy. Moreover, it was during Trump’s first presidential term that the U.S. adopted the 2019-2025 National Security Strategy for Central Asia, a whole-of-government approach which elevated its importance for the global American strategy.
Thus, greater emphasis on this region with the purpose of curbing Chinese or Russian influence can be expected, which would naturally boost the role of Azerbaijan as a natural Westward gateway for Central Asia. While Baku at some point was considering integration with BRICS, the outcomes of the Kazan summit last October were rather disappointing, so this issue is out of the agenda right now and Azerbaijan may be expected to become more receptive to messages coming from Washington.
Another important aspect for Baku is Trump’s ideological agenda. In 2024 even more than in 2016, he made an emphasis on the defense of “traditional values”, including gender roles, the status of minorities etc. The Republican leader has been outspoken about the horrors of left liberalism that aims to destroy American society, and castigated people like George Soros among the major culprits. These claims reverberate with President Aliyev’s views. Moreover, some of Baku’s closest friends among European leaders, Hungarian and Italian prime ministers Victor Orban and Giorgia Meloni, are also among Trump’s confidants abroad. Azerbaijan has been cultivating ties with some influential evangelist groups in the U.S. who are among Trump’s natural allies in his crusade against the liberal elite. As people like Elon Musk with his overt public interventions into European politics strive to make this crusade global, Baku may hope to find itself on the same side of history with the world’s still-biggest power.
On the other hand, these ideological peculiarities of the new American elite bear certain risks for Azerbaijan as well. This administration has a number of people with Christian nativist views often shared by Armenian and pro-Armenian circles, particularly strongly by the Armenian diaspora in the US who might try to garner Washington’s support by promoting their narrative of an “aggressive Islamist dictatorship”. Another problem may stem from the US attitude to the current Georgian Dream government in Tbilisi, which, despite previous expectations, turns out to be openly hostile. In his recent tweet, Joe Wilson, one of the most prominent Republicans in the Congress, implied the existence of a “geopolitical axis” bringing together “dictatorships” such as Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Georgia. Since Tbilisi holds a paramount importance for Baku’s geopolitical strategy, its political isolation from the West, or the prospect of internal destabilization, can bring about a lot of problems. In general, unpredictability of the new administration, especially if it persists, may also sow more chaos globally. If US takes forceful actions to deliver on Trump’s pledges to acquire Greenland and “restore the ownership of the Panama Canal”, a psychological threshold for launching an international aggression may fall down further, which may spell trouble for a region as vulnerable as the South Caucasus.
In any case, the upcoming four years will be the era of great upheaval, acute risk and big opportunities in most parts of the world. Unlike the previous US administration which all too often ignored the tectonic changes happening globally, the new one would like to be the vanguard of these changes and ensure that the way the world is reshaped, is in America’s favour. With its traditionally flexible and skillful foreign policy, Baku may hope to be among the winners of this new configuration.
