President Donald Trump formally endorsed Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, ahead of the most important election in Armenia’s history.
Pashinyan has completely reinvented the small nation’s foreign policy, drifting away from its long-lasting alliance with Russia and towards friendly relations with the United States, the West, and its longtime rivals, Turkey and Azerbaijan. On Wednesday, ahead of the June 7 election, Trump fully endorsed Pashinyan, hailing him as a “great friend and Leader” who was making Armenia “strong, wealthy, and very secure!”
“Nikol completely shares my vision of PEACE and PROSPERITY for Armenia and the entire South Caucasus region,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, hailing progress made during Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Armenia earlier this week.
The president said the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a U.S.-controlled corridor linking Azerbaijan with its isolated territory, would allow Nakhchivan to “transform the South Caucasus” while helping U.S. energy companies gain access to Central Asia.
“For these reasons, Nikol has my COMPLETE and TOTAL Endorsement for Re-Election on June 7, 2026,” Trump said. “With Nikol’s help, we will bring the United States, Armenia, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia to greater heights than ever before. Make (Armenia) Great Again — MAGA!”
“Thank you, President @realDonaldTrump for the high appreciation and friendly words,” Pashinyan said in a post on X, alongside heart emojis.
Pashinyan, though boasting dismal approval ratings, is currently favored to win the election in polling, given the fractured and listless nature of his opposition. He previously won a snap election in June 2021, just months after suffering a catastrophic military defeat in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War against Azerbaijan.
Pashinyan has implemented the complete transformation of Armenia’s position in the region and the world, going from a de facto protectorate of Russia to one bordering on hostility. His overtures towards the U.S. and the European Union have intensified over the past year due to the efforts of the Trump administration, which brokered a preliminary peace deal to end the decades-long Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Even more radically, over the past several months, the prime minister completely reversed his position on Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Turkey. He has begun insisting that Nagorno-Karabakh never belonged to Armenia, a hugely unpopular notion in his country, and one that has sparked verbal battles with citizens in public. He’s also begun pitching Azerbaijan and Turkey, Armenia’s historical enemies, as natural friends.
The 2026 election campaign has been dominated by competing allegations of foreign interference. The opposition claims Pashinyan is controlled by Western and Turkish interests, while Pashinyan’s camp claims the opposition is controlled by Russian interests.
“Much of the political contest in Armenia has been framed by the ruling party and its satellites as a struggle between the forces of democracy and reactionaries, who want to drag Armenia back to its undemocratic past,” Lehigh University Professor Arman Grigoryan, an expert in Armenian foreign policy and international relations, told the Washington Examiner. “It has simultaneously been used to make a case for changing Armenia’s strategic orientation, i.e., distancing the country from Russia and integrating with the West, which, of course, has been presented as a choice between democracy and authoritarianism.”
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While the recent flurry of interest from the Trump administration has been popular among more Western-inclined Armenians, the visits of high-ranking officials and open political endorsements have provided ample ammunition for his critics. Grigoryan described Trump’s endorsement of Pashinyan as “blatant interference in the electoral process in Armenia.”
“Any criticism directed at [Pashinyan], or any opposition to them for that matter, is framed as a case of ‘hybrid war’ by Russia, which is a term designed to describe concealed Russian interference in the Armenian elections, while the West is doing it openly,” he said.