US President Donald Trump has renewed attention on the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), saying his administration “strongly supports” the project as the US-Iran conflict disrupts shipping through key West Asian routes and raises concerns over energy supplies. Trump made the remarks during a meeting with Gulf Cooperation Council and Arab leaders on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, saying, “That’s why my administration strongly supports the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor,” while also referring to pipelines and other means of moving oil out of the region.
IMEC was unveiled at the G20 Summit in New Delhi in September 2023 by India, the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, France, Germany, Italy and the European Union. The project envisages an eastern corridor connecting India to the Gulf and a northern corridor linking the Gulf with Europe, combining shipping and rail links with supplementary infrastructure for electricity, digital connectivity and clean hydrogen. Under the plans, goods arriving from India by sea would be transferred onto rail networks across the Gulf and onward towards the Mediterranean before continuing to European markets, with the UAE occupying a pivotal position in the proposed corridor as the maritime-to-rail gateway.
The corridor is meant to provide India with an alternate multimodal route to European markets, potentially saving time and cost in transporting goods between India, the Gulf and Europe, while deepening India’s trade ties across the regions and opening opportunities in energy, digital connectivity and clean hydrogen. Trade experts have previously estimated IMEC could reduce logistics costs by up to 30% and cut transportation time by around 40% for the participating economies, which together account for a combined GDP of $47 trillion, a consumer base of 2.25 billion people and around one-fifth of total global trade. IMEC’s relevance is heightened for India given that about half of its total exports, and almost four-fifths of its exports to Europe, currently pass through the Red Sea route.
Since its announcement in 2023, however, the project has faced major challenges due to geopolitical tensions in West Asia. The October 2023 Hamas attack and subsequent Israel-Hamas war exposed the vulnerability of the region IMEC’s proposed route passes through, disrupting the broader diplomatic environment around Saudi-Israeli normalisation and creating additional logistical and geopolitical difficulties. The project was not cancelled, but its implementation became considerably more difficult, and IMEC remains a political and infrastructure framework rather than a completed, end-to-end India-Europe trade corridor, with some components and agreements continuing to move forward.
Speaking to ANI on the rationale behind the renewed push, Jawaharlal Nehru University professor Srikanth Kondapalli said the IMEC project is being talked about again for several reasons: to resurrect trade and stabilise the West Asian situation, to properly utilise the investments Saudi Arabia and the UAE have committed, and because of growing European interest, particularly given India’s free trade agreements with the European Union, the EFTA countries and Oman.
Trump’s comments suggest Washington increasingly views alternative infrastructure not simply as a trade project but as part of a broader effort to make regional energy and supply routes less vulnerable to disruption, at a time when attacks on commercial shipping around the Strait of Hormuz have again exposed the risks associated with major maritime chokepoints in the region. The renewed backing gives fresh strategic weight to IMEC for India, placing energy security and diversification of Gulf export routes more prominently alongside the project’s original pitch as a trade and transport corridor.
