US Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a brief stopover in Yerevan on Tuesday, signing a series of agreements with Armenia that include a renewed strategic partnership, cooperation on critical minerals, and a framework advancing a major transit corridor project — all against the backdrop of Armenia's June parliamentary elections and its accelerating pivot away from Russia.

The centrepiece of the visit was a signing ceremony at Yerevan's airport, where Rubio and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan formalised steps toward the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, known as TRIPP. The proposed 43-kilometre road-and-rail corridor would traverse southern Armenia, providing Azerbaijan — a rival with which Armenia signed a historic peace deal last August — with a land connection to its exclave of Nakhchivan and onward to Türkiye.