What would a Harris or Trump presidency mean for Armenians?
By Mane Berikyan
Civilnet
The November elections in the United States will be the first since Azerbaijan’s attack on Nagorno-Karabakh last September, which resulted in the ethnic cleansing of the region’s entire Armenian population. So, for the more than 1 million Armenians living in the United States, a critical issue on the ballot is the fate of Armenia and Armenians.
The Trump administration oversaw Armenia’s catastrophic defeat in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, and the Biden-Harris administration was in power during the latest escalation of the decades-long conflict which resulted in the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno Karabakh’s Armenians. Now, Vice President Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee against former President Donald Trump, a Republican.
What would a Harris or Trump presidency mean for Armenia and Armenians? Here’s a breakdown.
Trump on Armenian issues
Among Armenians, Trump is perhaps best known for being president during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. The conflict, which resulted in Armenia losing control over a large part of Nagorno-Karabakh and later paved the way for the region’s ultimate loss last year, was a significant turning point for the country. Under Trump, the United States took a passive position and did little to mediate an end to the conflict, beyond lukewarm condemnations and two-sided calls to cease hostilities. The president did, however, promise in 2020 that he would “straighten out” the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and praised Armenians as “good people” and “great businesspeople.”
In addition to an apparent “hands-off” policy on Nagorno-Karabakh, the Trump administration made repeated and concerted efforts to block U.S. aid to the region. It repeatedly targeted the U.S. aid program to Nagorno-Karabakh, ultimately cutting off all humanitarian aid and defunding demining efforts.
Under Trump, the United States also broke years of precedent of sending equal U.S. military aid to Armenia and Azerbaijan, instead boosting Azerbaijan’s funding to more than $100 million. Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s budget requests called for reductions in aid to Armenia. As president, Trump publicly embraced Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose military directly assisted Azerbaijan’s assault on Nagorno-Karabakh. He also failed to condemn or take action against Erdoğan’s bodyguards when they physically assaulted peaceful protesters on U.S. soil during an official visit to Washington.
According to political consultant and CivilNet commentator Eric Hacopian, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev would welcome another Trump presidency. It is not Trump’s specific policies, but rather the foreign policy environment he creates, that would allow Azerbaijan to continue to act with impunity, he said.
In an interview with CivilNet last month, Hacopian said that Azerbaijan is “looking forward to a Trump world, because they think a Trump election means Russian victory in Ukraine, less U.S. involvement, and a freer hand for every dictator around the world, specifically [Russian President Vladimir] Putin or Aliyev himself.”
Also watch: Biden’s out. What does that mean for Armenia?
In addition, during his four years in office, Trump not only failed to recognize the Armenian Genocide, but also actively tried to block recognition efforts in Congress. After the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Armenian Genocide Resolution in 2019, Trump enlisted Senators Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), David Perdue (R-Ga.) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) to block passage in the Senate. However, Trump’s efforts were unsuccessful and the bill was ultimately passed.
Like all of his predecessors and his successor too, Trump waived Section 907 of the 1992 Freedom Support Act all four years of his term, overriding restrictions on U.S. assistance to Azerbaijan due to its blockades of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.
Another important issue for many Armenians living in the United States is immigration, as many families emigrate from Armenia to the United States and become naturalized citizens. Under the Trump administration, significant cuts were made to legal, family-based immigration, which would affect any Armenians who hope to sponsor their families’ immigration to the United States.
Meanwhile, Trump’s vice presidential pick, Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), has a more solid record of engaging with issues relevant to Armenia. In a memo to Congress last October, Vance highlighted “the rapid overthrow of the cease-fire agreement in Nagorno Karabakh by Azerbaijan and the exodus of an ancient Christian community.” And in January, Vance wrote to the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury urging her to block arms sales to the Czechoslovak Group, a controversial firm that, among other things, Vance claimed has been implicated in “violations of the arms embargo to Azerbaijan.”
Harris on Armenian issues
In April 2021, the Biden-Harris administration became the first in U.S. history to formally recognize the Armenian Genocide. However, many critics point out that this step has been undermined by Biden’s failure to prevent last September’s ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians from their ancestral homeland.
For more than nine months, Azerbaijan attempted to starve out more than 100,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh with a blockade. In September, this escalated to a full-blown military attack against the civilian population, forcibly displacing the entire population. During this time, the United States under Biden failed to stop Azerbaijan’s blockade and subsequent ethnic cleansing, beyond issuing condemnations and unfulfilled promises.
Also read: US will not tolerate ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Nagorno-Karabakh, State Department official says
Under Biden, Armenia not only lost control over the remaining portion of Nagorno-Karabakh, but also parts of its sovereign territory in two separate attacks since May 2021. Armenian officials have said the United States played a significant role in stopping Azerbaijan from further invading Armenia in September 2022. Nonetheless, Washington was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing Azerbaijan’s invasion or pressuring Baku to retreat from occupied lands.
Meanwhile, on Armenian-American issues, as a Senator representing California, Harris had a strong record on Armenian Genocide recognition, including social media posts commemorating April 24 Remembrance Day, and co-sponsoring the Armenian Genocide Recognition Resolution in the Senate. Harris also signed letters in 2019 and 2020 supporting demining efforts in Nagorno-Karabakh to remove mines laid during the first Karabakh war which endangered the lives of the local population, after cuts to humanitarian aid by the Trump administration, as well as a letter urging the Library of Congress to properly categorize the Armenian Genocide.
“The one good thing about her candidacy is [that] if you’re any kind of an elected official from either party and you come from California…you have a relationship on some level with the Armenian community,” Hacopian said of Harris’ track record with Armenians.
“More importantly,” he added, “you know about Armenian issues…and Armenia to a certain extent, which is not necessarily true of other places in the United States. There’s no learning curve there.”
In addition, the Biden-Harris administration has been clear about its intent to facilitate a lasting peace in the South Caucasus. To that end, the United States has been much more involved in mediating the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict under Biden, and has welcomed Armenia’s ambitions to leave Russia’s orbit. Armenian officials have said the United States played a significant role in stopping Azerbaijan from further invading Armenia in September 2022.
Perhaps most significantly, under Biden and Harris, the United States has made significant efforts to deepen relations with Armenia, showing increasing interest in the energy, economic and defense sectors. Since last September, the United States and Armenia have held at least two joint military drills to strengthen ties in a program dubbed Eagle Partner. Washington also confirmed last month that it will appoint a resident advisor to Armenia’s Defense Ministry, and U.S. officials have signaled readiness to strengthen economic ties with Armenia through trade and investments. The United States has also been in “substantive” talks with Armenia about the possibility of replacing its aging Russian-built nuclear power plant with a new, U.S.-designed one.
According to Hacopian, a Harris presidency would mean “a continuation of what we have right now” for Armenians. Harris’ policies with regard to Armenia would likely be in line with Biden’s, meaning a generally “pro-Armenia” position and an effort to deepen relations with Armenia without directly going against the regime in Baku.
In a noteworthy move, Azerbaijan last week dropped its demand for Armenia to open an extraterritorial corridor from talks over a normalization agreement. What Azerbaijan refers to as the “Zangezur corridor” threatened Armenia’s sovereignty and raised security issues in Armenia’s southern regions. This potential route had become one of the major obstacles in the years-long efforts to reach a normalization deal, and many speculate that Azerbaijan’s concession was a result of mounting U.S. and EU diplomatic pressure on Baku.
Moreover, Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, is a former history teacher who has been a strong advocate for Armenian Genocide recognition in the past.
At a 2015 Armenian Genocide observance on Capitol Hill, then-Congressman Walz delivered fiery remarks in support of recognizing the Armenian Genocide, saying, “I personally have no Armenian voters. I am here because the Armenian Genocide is important for my non-Armenian voters, too.”
“If [other Congressmen] think that recognizing the Armenian Genocide goes against our [American] security because we have a military base in Turkey,” he continued, “then I say, it is time we reassess our security priorities.”
In 2021, Azerbaijani groups intensified their efforts to have Walz declare February 26, the day of commemoration of the Sumgait Pogroms, as “Azerbaijani Day” in Minnesota. However, Walz quickly canceled the signing of such a proclamation when met with protests from the Armenian community.
Lastly, unlike Trump’s stance on family-based immigration — an issue of significant importance to many Armenian American voters — Harris has a record of supporting immigrant communities and legal immigration to the United States. As NPR reported, Harris’ “experience as the daughter of immigrants has intertwined with her career as a prosecutor to form a pattern: pro-immigration but tough in enforcing the law.”
What is the bottom line?
Come November 2024, either Trump or Harris will be the president-elect of the United states. But how much will the winning candidate determine the course of U.S.-Armenia relations?
Expert opinions differ. According to Hacopian, it’s not about partisanship — it’s about the political establishment.
“The political establishment today in the United States is more favorably disposed toward Armenia than it’s ever been in history. And that has not much to do with partisanship — it has to do with the fact that Armenia has made a pivot to the west,” Hacopian said
