Fundamental Choices at the Polls for Georgia and the United States

Irakli Sirbiladze
Within a few days, Georgian and US citizens will cast their ballots in elections that will have momentous consequences for their respective countries—and for the strained relationship between Tbilisi and Washington

The presidential election in the United States will come shortly after Georgia’s parliamentary elections on October 26, with voters in both countries facing a fundamental choice. For Georgians will for the first time effectively choose between democracy or autocracy, and between alignment with the democratic West or authoritarian China and Russia. 

Georgia’s relationship with the United States is at its lowest since the country regained independence in 1991. While Georgia is small and peripheral to US interests, Democratic and Republican administrations have over the years highlighted the importance of consolidating its democracy and supported its EU and NATO aspirations. Ties expanded across many areas, including defense and security. 

However, the governing Georgian Dream party has embraced closer alignment with China and Russia over relying solely on the West, particularly since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It has dealt with Moscow with extreme caution, sought economic advantages from the situation, and signed a strategic partnership with China. The West’s pushback against Russia threatened Georgian Dream’s friendly pre-2022 policy toward Moscow, but the party has maintained it.

Over the past two years, Georgian Dream’s rhetoric has become increasingly anti-United States. It has tacitly accused Washington of trying to foment a revolution and to drag the country into the war. The adoption of the “foreign agents” law targeting civil society organizations and independent media was the final straw for the Biden administration, which responded with unprecedented travel restrictions and sanctions against officials of the party and of law-enforcement authorities. Washington also suspended joint military exercises and froze up to $100 million of financial assistance to the government. It is considering more sanctions in case of further democratic decline in the country. 

Fundamentally, Georgian Dream wants the United States to tolerate its policy toward Russia and to stay away from Georgia’s domestic politics while their relationship proceeds as before across many domains, including trade and transit. For their part, the opposition parties embrace democracy and want stronger ties with Washington, including by aligning with the West regarding Ukraine. They also support the country’s critical infrastructure, such as Anaklia Deep Sea Port, being built by American and/or European companies rather than by Chinese ones. 

Fundamentally, Georgian Dream wants the United States to tolerate its policy toward Russia and to stay away from Georgia’s domestic politics.

If Kamala Harris is elected, she would most likely base her Georgia policy on that of the Biden administration. This would mean prioritizing the country’s democracy, Euro-Atlantic integration, and alignment with the West’s stance toward China and Russia. A Georgian Dream victory would go against these priorities. Bolstered with a new mandate, the party would likely pursue further autocratization at home and multi-alignment abroad. In this scenario, the relationship is likely to deteriorate even further. By contrast, an opposition victory in Georgia alongside a Harris win would mean the relationship getting back to the old normal or even improving on that.

During Trump’s presidency, US policy toward Georgia did not deviate greatly from that under previous administrations. But a second Trump administration is expected to prioritize geopolitical competition with China and Iran, both of which the Georgian Dream government has recently built close relations with. This would cause strain. Washington would likely prioritize contesting China’s influence in Georgia and expect the country’s alignment not only regarding Beijing but also Tehran. It would also be less interested in Georgia’s democracy and Euro-Atlantic path. A Trump administration may require Tbilisi to cancel the contract with the Chinese company selected to build Anaklia Deep Sea Port in exchange for lifting sanctions and returning relations to normal. 

Like Trump, Georgian Dream’s leaders see politics in transactional terms. They expect that he would be more willing than Harris to keep good working relations and put democracy concerns on the margin. On the other hand, a new government in Tbilisi would prioritize forging closer strategic ties with the United States and alignment regarding China and Iran. Yet in this case too relations could suffer if a Trump administration cozies up to Russia and downgrades the transatlantic relationship as the current opposition has an anti-Russia, pro-Ukraine, and pro-EU outlook. 

Ultimately, the direction of the relationship will depend more on the electoral outcome in Georgia than the one in the United States. Any future US administration will likely place emphasis on Tbilisi having a pro-West foreign policy (and a Harris one also on the state of its democracy). By contrast, if Georgian Dream stays in power, the relationship will remain as bad as it is now, and it may even worsen, whereas an opposition victory could see a reboot in it. 

Irakli Sirbiladze is a ReThink.CEE Fellow 2023 of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

This article is part of series in which GMF experts from Central and Eastern Europe set out the implications of a Harris or Trump win in the US presidential election for the countries in the region.