US President Donald Trump has thrown his support behind Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan ahead of parliamentary elections on June 7, describing the Armenian leader as “a great friend and leader”.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said Pashinyan is “making his country strong, wealthy and very secure”. He added that the Armenian leader “completely shares my vision of peace and prosperity for Armenia and the entire South Caucasus region”.
The US president gave Pashinyan his “complete and total endorsement” for the vote, in which the prime minister is seeking another term at the head of his Civil Contract party.
Pashinyan, who has led Armenia since 2018, faces a tight contest, according to opinion polls. His main rival is former president Robert Kocharyan, who heads the Armenia Alliance.
The June 7 ballot will be the first parliamentary election in the country since 2021. It is widely seen as a test of Pashinyan’s efforts to loosen Armenia’s dependence on Russia and build closer ties with the West.
Armenia, in the South Caucasus, is still recovering from Azerbaijan’s military takeover of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in 2023, which drove out almost all of its roughly 100,000 ethnic Armenians. The country had relied for decades on Russia as its main security partner, though that relationship has cooled since the loss of the territory.
Trump’s endorsement was tied closely to a US-brokered transit project. He said the United States and Armenia would “soon” break ground together on the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), which he claimed would “transform the South Caucasus”.
The corridor would run for 43km through Armenia’s southern Syunik province, connecting mainland Azerbaijan with its Nakhchivan exclave. Under the deal, reached at the White House in August 2025, Washington was granted exclusive rights to develop the route.
Trump said the project would help “wonderful American energy companies gain access from Central Asia all the way to the United States”.
He also praised US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who visited Armenia on his way back from a tour of India, saying Rubio had “advanced several important deals for both our countries”.
Trump closed his message by echoing his own campaign slogan, calling for supporters to “make Armenia great again”.
Pashinyan thanked the US president in a post on X, expressing gratitude for his “high appreciation and friendly words”.
It is unusual for a US president to back a candidate openly in another country’s election. The intervention came less than two weeks before Armenians go to the polls.
Pashinyan, who took office after mass street protests in 2018, remains locked in negotiations with Azerbaijan aimed at a final settlement to end the two countries’ long conflict.
