Vance’s $9 billion figure for ‘exports’ in US–Armenia nuclear energy cooperation sparks confusion
The translation of US Vice President JD Vance’s remarks, in which he spoke about $9 billion in funds directed toward nuclear energy in Armenia, has sparked confusion. In his speech on Monday, Vance said there would be ‘$5 billion in US exports, plus an additional $4 billion in support through fuel and maintenance contracts’ — however, the live translation into Armenian changed ‘exports’ to ‘investment’.
Vance delivered his remarks on Monday evening during a working trip to Yerevan that marked the highest-level visit by an American leader since Armenia gained independence.
After meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the two leaders announced plans to deepen cooperation in nuclear energy and signed a joint statement declaring that negotiations on an Armenia–US intergovernmental agreement on the peaceful use of nuclear energy had been completed.
Citing the compilation of the negotiations, Vance added that it would pave the way for US and Armenian companies ‘to strike deals on civil nuclear projects’.
He further suggested that the US would likely build small modular reactors in Armenia.
The mistranslation sparked confusion, apparently to the extent that journalists asked Vance a follow-up question about the same issue in a brief Q&A session right before his departure for Azerbaijan on Tuesday.
Vance avoided giving any precise answers, instead focusing on the tech investment.
‘One of the things that we signed yesterday, but also one of the things that we are working on in some of our meetings, is a lot of investment that’s going to come to Armenia because of some of the good deals that we have struck between President Trump and Prime Minister Pashinyan’, Vance said.
He also brought the example of the tech deal, saying that ‘there is going to be a very large data centre’ in Armenia, ‘that could rise to $4 billion in total investment’.
Opponents of Pashinyan’s government have accused the authorities of deliberately misleading the public through an inaccurate translation. In turn, the Armenian government has denied responsibility for the mistaken remarks.
Speaking to the state-run media outlet Armenpress, officials said that Vance’s remarks had been interpreted by the US side’s translator ‘in accordance with the established procedure’. They added that the Armenian government had published its own translation and transcript of the statements, which OC Media can confirm used the word ‘export’.
However, Armenpress, along with several other media outlets, initially circulated the inaccurate translation on Monday evening.
Shortly after Vance’s statement, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin reiterated the Kremlin’s readiness to build a nuclear power plant in Armenia.
It was the second Russian statement on the matter in less than a week. On 6 January, in a meeting with Armenian Parliamentary Speaker Alen Simonyan, the General Director of Russia’s State Nuclear Agency Rosatom, Aleksei Likhachev, offered Yerevan ‘comprehensive cooperation’ on the construction of new nuclear power units.
On Monday, Galuzin said that building a nuclear power plant ‘occupies an important place’ on the Moscow–Yerevan agenda.
‘Rosatom is ready to begin implementing the project in the shortest possible time, of course, taking into account the wishes of our Armenian friends’, Galuzin said.
He also claimed that ‘real alternatives are not visible’, in terms of having ‘reliable, already proven technologies, as well as attractive financial parameters, including construction, further operation, and the need to train and retrain specialists’.
