The Georgian opposition party Lelo has proposed to name the Anaklia Port after the US President Donald Trump, suggesting that it become a ‘gateway of [the] Trump Route to the Western world’.
At a briefing on Tuesday, the party’s Secretary General Irakli Kupradze characterised the ruling Georgian Dream party’s policies as ‘isolationist, anti-national and anti-Western’, saying they ‘put Georgia under threat’ amid the ‘geopolitical instability and ongoing conflicts in the region’.
‘The Anaklia Deep-Sea Port project, alongside the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, remains one of the few major initiatives fully aligned with the strategic priorities outlined by the United States and the Trump administration’, Kupradze said, noting that ‘the US interest in it has not waned’.
In his words, Anaklia Port is a project that has a potential to play a ‘pivotal’ role in the Black Sea region in terms of economy, security and diversification of the sources of energy there.
‘The Anaklia project needs to be fully implemented, not just treated as a token process’, Kupradze said, adding that the project ‘represents Georgia’s national and geopolitical choice’.
In 2024, the government relaunched a tender for Anaklia’s development, and announced 45 days later that the tender was awarded to a Chinese–Singaporean consortium — a move that has sparked fresh controversy. So far, there is no public information indicating that a contract has been signed with the winner.
Among the guarantees that Kupradze said the state must provide for implementation of the project, is the port project to be declared the number one national priority and for leading roles in the project to be given to the US and transatlantic financial institutions. Meanwhile, there should be no donation from the entities linked to ‘Russian and Chinese state interests’.
Kupradze emphasised that the Trump Route (also known by its acronym TRIPP) — a plan to create a connection between Azerbaijan and its exclave of Nakhchivan through Armenian territory — must not bypass Georgia.
‘The realisation of this is possibly only through the construction of the Anaklia port, which would serve as the logical continuation of the Trump Route’, he stated, calling on ‘all parties involved’ to ‘name the Anaklia Port after President Trump and make it the gateway of the Trump Route to the Western world, which would bring security, Western investment, and economic growth’.
Helena Bedwell
The Anaklia Deep Sea Port’s development and construction has been marred with controversy from the start.
The port was first announced in 2014 and the Anaklia Development Consortium was awarded the contract in 2016. In 2020, the government abruptly cancelled the deal. The consortium, led by businesspeople-turned-politicians, the Lelo founders Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze, unsuccessfully pursued arbitration in Washington.
Khazaradze accused the authorities of pressuring the consortium, while the government accused the consortium of not fulfilling its contractual obligations.
Khazaradze, alongside with Japaridze, founded their own political party, Lelo, on the eve of the 2020 elections, shortly after exchanging the accusations with the authorities.
Anaklia has proved unlucky for many Georgian governments. The resignation of Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili in 2018 reportedly came in part over differences of opinion with Ivanishvili, including over Anaklia. His successor Irakli Gharibashvili also tried — and failed — to push the project forward.
After the termination of the consortium, the state promised to build the port using its own funds, with the investor holding a 49% stake and the state 51%.
