On Thursday, US President Donald Trump will host Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House. Modi will be only the fourth foreign leader Trump has hosted since returning to the White House. Trump is likely to be able to claim some victory after the meeting, as Modi is expected to offer concessions on India’s protectionist trade practices and closer cooperation on immigration controls. But there’s a bigger idea at play, too: the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). IMEC is a plan to make trade cheaper, faster, and much bigger in the Middle East through a network of 21st-century rail, sea, and infrastructure corridors. Linking the Arabian Sea to the Mediterranean, the project was launched during the 2023 G20 summit in New Delhi. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has de-prioritized IMEC compared to other issues on its agenda, and multilateral efforts have largely stalled.
Of course, this had much to do with Israel’s wars with Hamas and Hezbollah. Those concerned about losing IMEC (like Egypt) and those with competing projects (Iraq and Turkey, Iran and Russia) have used the time to raise questions among Arab governments about the route’s potential security vulnerabilities.
If Trump breathes new life into IMEC, tens of billions of dollars could soon be spent improving or building ports, roads, trains, pipelines, and fiber-optic cables that would expand and integrate the economies of Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The number of ships sailing between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden would be reduced, and thus the U.S. Navy’s need to defend itself against Houthi attacks would be reduced. It would help counter China's Belt and Road Initiative, reduce Tehran's regional influence, strengthen the Abraham Accords — arguably the most important foreign policy achievement of Trump's first term — and help create the conditions for possible normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
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