Amid fresh tensions with Tbilisi, a national-security expert close to the White House says the United States wants to improve relations with Georgia, but will not give the South Caucasus country a “get-out-of-jail-free” card without Tbilisi putting “serious things on the table” that benefit both sides.
“If the Georgian government doesn’t know this, then they’re idiots,” says James Jay Carafano, a senior counselor to the president of The Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington, D.C. think tank that has influenced President Donald Trump’s policies. “And if they don’t act on it, it’s because they don’t want a strategic partnership with the United States.”
For the U.S., he adds, such a partnership hinges on Tbilisi reducing Chinese and Russian influence on Georgia’s part of the Middle Corridor, the emerging trade and energy route linking Central Asia, the South Caucasus and Europe with China. On June 9, the Georgian government signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership agreement with Beijing — announced the day after the U.S. House of Representatives approved monitoring Chinese and Russian intelligence and influence activities in Georgia and annually reassessing U.S. policy toward the country, a formerly close ally.
Saying that Georgia is not a schoolchild to be reprimanded, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has denied U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s June 3 congressional testimony that Tbilisi asked for pointers on reconciliation.
In response, Carafano notes that “the United States is not going to come chasing the Georgian government” to restore strong bilateral ties. Intervention in Georgian politics to achieve that is not part of the strategy, he underlines. “If they want to live in the shadow of Russia and China, fine, because we’ve got other options here. We’ve got other choices.”
Among them, aside from Serbia, Belarus, Romania and Bulgaria, he names Georgia’s neighbors, Armenia and Azerbaijan, co-partners in the Trump Route to International Peace and Prosperity, part of the Middle Corridor.
Ultimately, he says, if Georgia wants to avoid regional isolationism, the ball is in Tbilisi’s court.
This interview was recorded on June 18, 2026 and has been edited for length and clarity.
Kartlos Sharashenidze, Independence Avenue Media: Let me start with the recent public disagreement between Washington and the Georgian government. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Georgia had asked the United States what it would take to improve relations and that there had been positive responses. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze responded by saying no such conversation took place and that Georgia is not a schoolchild that can be kept after class and told how to behave. What does this exchange tell you about the current state of relations between the Trump administration and the ruling Georgian Dream party? And how concerned should Georgians be about where the relationship is heading?
James Jay Carafano, national security and foreign policy expert, senior counselor to the president of The Heritage Foundation: Well, on the positive side, I really believe that the United States thinks that the bilateral relationship with Georgia is important, and that the way to improve the bilateral relationship is about engaging with Georgians on issues of mutual interest and issues of importance to the U.S. So that’s the positive thing.
I think the United States has learned that trying to isolate and ignore Georgia is no benefit really to anybody on either side.
The U.S. is deeply interested in expanding the success of the Middle Corridor [a proposed transportation and trade network linking China to Europe via Central Asia and the South Caucasus], so linking the Central Asia, South Caucasus, Black Sea, Romania, Bulgaria. Georgia’s an important part of that.
The United States wants a more stable region, and so, I think Rubio’s comments were factual. I mean, he doesn’t make stuff up. If he said he talked to the government and was honest with them, and said we want to work on things, then he was serious about that.
My kind of candid assessment from the Georgian perspective [is that] what this [Georgian] government would like is they’d love a get-out-of-jail-free card, which is having a partnership with the United States and they can do whatever they want. But that’s just not going to work. There are going to have to be some real deliverables on both sides to move the relationship forward.
And this president [Donald Trump] is only interested in [the] outcome. He’s not interested in nice words. If you want to build a Trump Tower, that’s fine, or name a street after Trump, that’s fine, but what he really wants is: Where is the outcome? Where is the deliverable?
The Georgians are going to have to sit down and bring things to the table on issues of mutual interest to the United States and deliver something that’s real. They’re just not going to get the president, Trump, to say, “OK, Georgia’s wonderful,” and that’s the end of it.
It’s just pretty, pretty simple. I mean, the policy of the Georgian government has been to restrain domestic discontent and then when they’ve been criticized by the Europeans and the Americans in the West, to just cut them off and lean more into Russia and China.
Fine, they can do whatever they want, but the reality is those are dead-end relationships. Russia is never going to re-emerge as a strong and influential power in the region. It’ll always be relevant to Georgia because it’s on its border, but it’s now just a neighbor. It is not a country that is driving world events. The Chinese have demonstrated over and over again that they’re not going to stick their neck out for anybody and they’re going to go where the money is easy, and where the influence is easy, and not necessarily to the benefit of Georgians.
So, yes, the government can stay in power, sure, under the current thing, but that will mean that Georgia, as a country, will be a more marginal and less relevant player. And the reality is the development in the Middle Corridor is going to allow people to gain access to the Black Sea and move goods and services without Georgia. And it makes no sense. The Georgians have good relations with the Azerbaijanis, they have good relations with the Armenians. It’s really time for Georgia to emerge as a full and proactive partner in the region, not an island by itself.
But this is up to the Georgian people. Is the United States going to completely ignore political repression in the country and the abuse of dissidents? The answer is no. And we do that not because we’re pro-democracy, not because we don’t like the government. It’s because Georgia can never be a good partner if the Georgian people are not joining in Georgia’s future. And so, of course, we’re going to be encouraging the Georgian government to have a more stable and long-term — but this is really up to the Georgian people, right? The United States is not going to take sides against the government. I mean, it’s not even a practical option because, quite honestly, the political opposition is so fragmented and unrealistic that they don’t really have an option to offer.
Successful government is not about politics or ideology as, like, right or left or conservative or liberal or pro European. It’s about good governance and [a] better outcome for the people. That’s what the United States wants. It’s very, very pragmatic on that.
So, you know, on the one hand, it would like, for Georgia’s benefit, to see a more stable political path forward because it’s better for Georgia. But, on the other hand, the United States wants to work with the government that’s there on better outcomes for both sides.
The Georgian government needs to make a choice. Do they want to seriously engage with the United States on a real partnership level? Take, for example, Serbia. [Serbians] do business with the Russians, the [Serbians] do business with the Chinese, but they are aggressively pursuing a stronger bilateral relationship with the United States because it’s in their interest to do so. And they understand that it’s just not the United States kind of waving their hand and saying, “Do whatever you want.” It’s about where are the positive constructive outcomes for both the United States and Serbia? This is the relationship we have with Armenia, this is the relationship we have with Azerbaijan.
So Georgia can either join that path or it can stay isolated and dependent on the largesse of the Russians and the Chinese and the tools of political repression.
It’s kind of up to the Georgian government.
IAM: You’ve said that Georgia adopted what you described as a “stupid anti-Western strategy” and that Tbilisi will need to make real changes. When you look at the Georgian government’s actions over the past few years, what do you see as the biggest mistakes in its approach to the West?
Carafano: Well, I think the biggest mistake is not engaging with the U.S. on issues of common interest. I think it’s kind of just that simple. I could understand why that was problematic under the last government [of the U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration], which was really only interested in punishing Georgia, and really aligning with the Europeans and isolating Georgia, but that’s not the strategy of this administration. The strategy of this administration is engagement. So we do it, we’ve done [it] with Belarus and other countries as well.
But make no mistake, the ball is in Georgia’s court. The United States is not going to come pleading for Georgia to talk as a real partner about real issues, and if they just want to bluster and everything, fine. But the United States is not going to come chasing the Georgian government. If they want to live in the shadow of Russia and China, fine, because we’ve got other options here. We’ve got other choices. On the other hand, if they want to broaden Georgia’s access to the world and bring more prosperity and stability and security to the country, the United States is your best option. It’s just kind of that simple.
But we’ve got other business in the world. We’re not going to spend our life chasing Georgians. In response to Rubio’s statement, what the Georgian government said was completely irresponsible and counterproductive, but what’s notable is the U.S. government response to that was kind of nothing. Right? Well, you know, that’s because we’re here and we’re not interested in burning the relationship to the ground, and if they want to bluster and do hubris all day long, fine, have a nice day.
But we’re serious about this. And you know, so, like, the phone’s there, call me if you want to talk. But this notion that somehow they’re going to get kind of a special recognition or relationship with the United States and not put serious things on the table, I just don’t see that happening. I don’t see any country where it has happened. Even countries where we’ve only sustained that engagement [it’s] because they’ve put something on the table. This is true in Belarus, definitely true in Azerbaijan, Armenia, even in Albania and Bulgaria.
IAM: What are the changes Washington would like to see from Georgian Dream before relations can improve?
Carafano: This is my personal opinion; I don’t work [for], [I’m] not speaking for the U.S. government, but the United States would love to see the Middle Corridor be a huge success. It would love to see Georgia be a stronger contributor to development of the corridor. Also, to the security of the Black Sea. We’d like to see a free and open Black Sea. We’re not talking about getting rid of the Montreux Treaty [which gives Turkey control over the straits between the Black Sea and Mediterranean Sea], but we’d like to see nations working together to improve the security of commercial traffic and infrastructure in the Black Sea.
We’re obviously very concerned about infrastructure that is controlled or owned by the Chinese. I mean, nobody cares if Chinese goods are flowing through the Middle Corridor, but we are concerned about China’s ability to own and influence infrastructure, whether that’s digital or a physical infrastructure like the port. We’re happy to compete with the Chinese on all kinds of things and we’re happy for people to do business with China, but the U.S. goal is no strategic dependencies on China. We think it’s the right strategy for us and we think it’s the right strategy for our partners.
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Obviously, what we’d all like to really see in the Middle Corridor is a lot more flow of energy. We think that’s critical to global energy security, to have a dynamic corridor of oil and gas flow through the region.
Obviously, we’d like to see more surety and expansion of capabilities in the digital space. We think those are the two big growth areas. We think there’s space for a larger manufacturing base across Central Europe through Central Asia, and lots of room for growth in small and medium enterprise space. But we think that’ll come.
What’s in it for the US? I mean, let’s be honest. The more space that the Russians and Chinese and Iranians don’t have to meddle with, the lighter the load it is for the United States, the easier it’s for us to get global access, and the easier for us to work with friends and partners.
So the United States is all in for building partnerships in Central Asia, South Caucasus, Southern Europe. Totally in for that. Again, it’s not about picking sides — the Russian side or China — but it is about reducing strategic dependencies on countries that have badly influenced the neighborhood. The United States is serious about that.
IAM: The House of Representatives recently passed a bill highlighting concerns about Chinese and Russian influence in Georgia. The very next day, Prime Minister Kobakhidze announced that Georgia and China had signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. How do you think that sequence of events, and Georgia’s increasingly close relationship with China, is perceived within the Trump administration?
Carafano: You know, this is not America’s problem. This is Georgia’s problem. First of all, the Chinese aren’t really terribly interested in Georgia. They’re not terribly interested in wasting a lot of money. And they’re only there because it’s easy. It’s kind of like you’re selling the soul of the country for not a lot of money to gain really nothing. In the end, the Chinese will do nothing for Georgia. They didn’t stick their neck out for the Russians in the Ukraine war. They didn’t stick their neck out for the Iranians in the Iranian war. They don’t stick their neck out for anybody. And so as long as there’s easy money and easy influence in Georgia, the Chinese will be all over that.
The irony is —and we’ve seen this again and again — the countries that do better with China are the countries that stand up to China. Because then if the Chinese really want to do business there, they will come back and they will give you a better deal because it’s worth it. But if you give them something for nothing, which, quite honestly, is what the Georgians are giving them now, you’re going to get what you are. You’re going to get treated like a vassal state and increasingly more like that. And the thing is it is not a counterbalance to the U.S. The U.S. doesn’t care. This is not like we’re fighting over Israel or something. If Georgia wants to stay in the shadow of China and Russia, have a nice day. We’re not gonna fight over Georgia. And so insulting us or kowtowing up to the Chinese [won’t work].
Look at the 17 + 1 [cooperation framework between China and 17 European countries] in Europe. Well,today it’s like 14 + 1and it doesn’t matter because they’ll never have another meeting. You know, the United States never attacked the 17 + 1. So, fine, have a nice day. People are fleeing from that because China doesn’t really deliver the strategic benefits. I mean, they can deliver targeted benefits to a couple of people who can make money out of this with the Chinese. Fine. But the question is: IIs Georgia’s GDP rising commensurate with other countries’ in the region? Is Georgia’s ability to attract FDI [foreign direct investment] from across the global space, not just from Russia and China, rising? Are people moving to Georgia as opposed to moving out of Georgia? Right? These, I think, are the real indicators of whether this is a sound strategy or not.
The United States is not going to lecture Georgia on democracy. It’s not going to lecture Georgia on politics. Even though there may be some factions in the U.S. that want to do that. And the United States government, I think, will be wholly pragmatic in dealing with Georgia. But its candid advice would be [that] you need to find a long-term path to political stability, and that includes a more stable political process. But how you get there, that’s really up to the Georgian people.
We have seen subtle changes, for example, in Albania. Is that a result of U.S. influence or not? I don’t know.I don’t think Albania is any more democratic than it was a year or two ago, but clearly the climate is more constructive. The opposition has more open space to raise their initiatives. Maybe they’re not winning over the government, but we’re seeing less people thrown in jail and [into] house arrest. There is a prudent path forward.
But just my candid thing is, if Georgia bet that the way the world was going to go and and who the powerful friends were going to be for them — and I think they bet wrong — it’s time to chart a different course. And kowtowing [to] the Chinese or the Russians or insulting the Americans, that’s not going to get you anywhere. Except, another day older and deeper in debt as the country-western song [by Tennessee Ernie Ford] goes.
IAM: In an open letter last year to President Trump and Vice President JD Vance, Prime Minister Kobakhidze said that Georgian Dream and the Trump administration share similar views on a number of issues. He wrote that Georgian Dream had criticized the “deep state” and USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) years before President Trump.
Carafano: Yeah, yeah. All that was blah, blah.
IAM: Do you see that kind of alignment between Georgian Dream and the Trump administration?
Carafano: First of all, all that’s just talk and irrelevant to this administration when it actually comes to government-to-government relations, which are about pragmatism.
We have plenty of people in the United States who admire Donald Trump and run around and if Georgia does it (currying favor), it’s irrelevant. What have they actually brought to the table? This is nothing. And honestly, it either shows the utter immaturity of the government and the insularness of that [or] they don’t understand how the world works and how the United States works. Or, you know, maybe they got bad lobbyists. I don’t know, but it was a strategy that was absolutely bound to fail.
If you look at the strong building relationships that the United States has, it’s not people that say nice things about Donald Trump.iIt’s people that do things with Donald Trump, like Japan, Romania, Croatia, Armenia, Azerbaijan; people that are putting stuff on the table and partnering with the United States. Those are the guys. Not people that are writing letters like “We hate the ‘deep state,’ too.” Donald Trump doesn’t care. You can’t do anything about the “deep state.” You know, we don’t need people that wear MAGA t-shirts and hats. We need people that are going to work with the United States. That’s what we’re looking for.
IAM: Some people in Georgia worry that the Trump administration could be willing to overlook concerns about democratic backsliding and human rights in Georgia in favor of business deals. Do you think those concerns are justified?
Carafano: No, because I don’t think the track record is that. We deal with lots of countries that have significant democratic repression. That is not off the table.
In Belarus, for example, we’ve gotten dissidents released from jail, and people from other countries. So it’s an uncomfortable part of the conversation, but it’s not ignored. And again, it’s not because we’re promoting democracy or [saying that] you have to be like us. It’s just not healthy in the relationship. I mean, we bring this up with China. It is not healthy if you have businesses that are using slave labor. Nobody wants [such] products and you can’t run an economy on that. So, we do it because we think it’s good for both sides. But we do it in a way that is not lecturing and not pejorative. We do it in a way that’s pragmatic.
And so, I think it’s an excuse on the [Georgian] government side. I think it’s an excuse to not engage with the United States.
On the part of the [Georgian] political opposition, I think it’s a bit of unrealism, right? Like, what do you expect the United States to do? We’re not going to come in and fix your country. We’re just not going to do that. That’s not our job.
And so, it’s unrealistic to ask the United States to do things that you can’t and won’t do. If you’re boycotting elections and not participating and then saying, “Well, you should just come in and tell them the elections are illegitimate and push it.” We’re not going to do that. And we’re not going to fund dissidents to have a bunch of conferences and run around and not actually accomplish anything.
I think neither side is going to be happy with how the U.S. chooses to engage about Georgian domestic issues. But the way the U.S. is going to choose to engage about domestic issues is something that is both pragmatic and constructive. It may not be perfect. You know, nobody’s perfect. We’re not, but we’re not going to solve anybody’s problems. We’re not going to go to the government and say, “We’re going to make sure the world ignores all your domestic problems.” And we’re not going to go to the opposition and say, “We’re going to solve all your complaints and issues and problems.” We’re not going to make either side happy. But honestly, it is the pragmatic thing for the United States to do. It is not our job to build a democracy in Georgia. It is also not our job to ignore things which are hurtful to the bilateral relationship and to the success of Georgia as our partner. It’s the world in which we live.
IAM: Georgian Dream has had this campaign since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine that the West, the U.S. and Europe were trying to drag Georgia into the war. What do you think about this?
Carafano: It’s obviously not true. It’s the longest war we’ve had in Europe since World War II. It’s longer than World War II and nobody’s dr[a]gged Georgia in anything. It was always nonsensical and it’s continued to be nonsense. And it’s peddled all over Europe, mostly by Russians and people favorable to Russia. But the reality is nobody has a desire to expand this war, and certainly nobody has the desire to force anybody to do anything they don’t want.
IAM: If relations between Washington and Tbilisi do not improve, could that create problems for military and security cooperation between the United States and Georgia?
Carafano: Probably not. I mean, Georgia can muddle along in obscurity and mediocrity forever.
The world doesn’t turn on Georgia.
You know, the United States is pretty significantly engaged in Moldova. Our interests in Moldova are pretty marginal. The reason why we’re there is because there’s some benefit to us. There’s a ton of benefit to the Moldovans, and they’re tired of living in obscurity and being a marginalized country. OK. Happy to work on that with you. But we’re not holding our breath.
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IAM: How does the United States view Georgia’s relationship with the European Union?
Carafano: I think the European Union is still in the position of punishing and isolating Georgia. I think the U.S. has passed that. And, of course, we’re going to do what we want. We don’t care what the Europeans think. So there’s an opening for Georgia, but they have to take advantage of it.
I’ll give you an example. Even in Belarus, for example, the European position was [to] isolate Belarus. Blah, blah, blah. The United States engaged. We’ve actually seen others kind of now tentatively doing more engagement. Even Poland and the Baltic states were very nervous about the U.S. engagement in Belarus. They go, “My God, you’re going to sell us out.” Blah, blah, blah. And none of that really happened. And now we’ve actually seen, OK, there is some value here in some of this. So, OK we’ll maybe look at kind of mirroring the U.S. approach .My guess is if Georgia does build a strategic partnership with the United States and it’s successful, the Europeans will fall in line.
IAM: What role does Georgia play in the Trump administration’s strategy for the South Caucasus?
Carafano: Well, less important because of the success in the Azerbaijan – Armenia relationship and because of the increasing influence of the United States in Romania and Bulgaria.
So, Georgia’s not, I think, necessarily the critical piece that it was two years ago when Trump came into office. Having said that, would having a strategic partnership with Georgia be really beneficial? Sure, we’d be all for it.
IAM: What about the Anaklia deep-sea port project?
Carafano: Yeah, I mean, look: The Azerbaijan-Armenia experience I think is very important. Everybody knows that Armenia and Azerbaijan could not have had a peace deal without the U.S. They waited until Trump got elected because they saw an opportunity to engage in the United States and not just in giving the United States the privilege of kind of sealing the deal, but in creating opportunities that brought the United States in as a stakeholder and really accelerated the confidence on both sides to move forward. So what’s the operative word here? It’s being proactive. It’s being proactive and putting things on the table that have real constructive outcomes for both sides. That’s the way to get the U.S.’ attention.
If the Georgian government doesn’t know this, then they’re idiots. And if they don’t act on it, it’s because they don’t want a strategic partnership with the United States. And the answer is we will just go around them. You know, we have a Georgia. It’s a state. We have our own Georgia in between our Florida and Alabama down there. We want a partner. And if it’s not a partner, then it’s just a country that we drive by.
IAM: So what do you think? What would it take to lift sanctions on [Georgian Dream founder and former Prime Minister] Bidzina Ivanishvili ?
Carafano: It’ll take the Georgian government coming forward with a real package that puts real deliverables on the table. That’s what it’ll take. The U.S. is never just going to relieve sanctions on the promise to be better or just because they send a nice letter to him [President Trump]. The ball’s in the [Georgian] government’s court. It has to be an initiative from Tbilisi to move this ball forward. The United States has done exactly what I think they should do, which is they sent out the signal that we are ready to move beyond isolation for Georgia. And as soon as you come and put something on the table, this is exactly the same message they [the Trump administration] delivered to the Serbians. The Serbians are acting on it. The Georgian government is not.
