US has revived talk of the IMEC, the India-Europe trade corridor, but it remains on paper due to the conflict in the Middle East<\/p>\n
The US has put the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) back at the center of its Middle East strategy as shipping and energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz remain disrupted. US President Donald Trump told a meeting of Arab leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York that attacks on commercial shipping showed the need to shift the Middle East\u2019s energy infrastructure away from \u201cIranian checkpoints.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s why my administration strongly supports the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor,\u201d Trump said earlier this week, while calling for other ways of moving oil, including pipelines. The corridor was jointly unveiled at the G20 summit in New Delhi in 2023 by the US, India, Saudi Arabia, UAE, EU, Italy, France, and Germany. The IMEC would combine maritime routes, railways and other infrastructure, alongside planned energy and digital links. It has two broad sections: an eastern leg connecting India to the Gulf, and a northern leg linking the Gulf to Europe. Cargo would sail from India to the UAE, move by rail across Saudi Arabia and Jordan to Israel\u2019s Mediterranean coast, and then travel by sea from Haifa toward European ports. However, the IMEC is not by itself a single oil pipeline designed to replace Hormuz, as Trump\u2019s comments seemed to imply. It is a trade and connectivity network.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the IMEC\u2019s geopolitical significance?\u00a0
\nWhen the IMEC was announced, it was seen as a challenger to another route, which has been in the making for decades \u2013 the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC). Conceived in 2000 by India, Iran, and Russia, the 7,200-km INSTC will move freight from Mumbai through Iranian ports such as Bandar Abbas and Chabahar, across Iran and Azerbaijan \u2013 or via Caspian Sea routes \u2013 into Russia and onward to Northern and Western Europe.
\nIts main advantage over other routes is speed: the INSTC is said to be between 20% and 67% faster than existing corridors, while also avoiding the Suez Canal and Bab al-Mandab.\u00a0
\nSince 2022, it has become one of Moscow\u2019s highest-priority alternative logistics routes, as it allows Russia to maintain trade links with partners in South Asia.
\nThe corridor\u2019s development, however, has been slow, largely because Iran, and later Russia, came under unprecedented Western sanctions. Even so, work has continued. India has invested around $120 million in Iran\u2019s Chabahar Port, widely seen as a strategic anchor of the INSTC.
\nHowever, work at Chabahar has also been stalled by unilateral US sanctions against Iran.
\nWashington gave New Delhi a sanctions waiver in 2018, allowing India to develop and use the port for Afghanistan\u2019s reconstruction and regional trade. A second six-month waiver given in October expired in April, making it harder for India to continue to work on the port.\u00a0
\nChabahar is more than 500 km away from the conflict around the Strait of Hormuz. However, it still came under attack from US forces, with airstrikes targeting Iran\u2019s maritime infrastructure and surveillance facilities in July. New Delhi clarified at the time that the Indian-operated Shahid Beheshti terminal itself was not damaged.
\nFor India, Chabahar \u2013 and INSTC \u2013 remain the best options to access the Central Asian, Russian, and European markets, even if Washington and Tehran end hostilities tomorrow and open up Hormuz. A lot of work\u00a0has\u00a0already been done and the impact from any regional instability or political uncertainty would be far less than in the case of IMEC.<\/p>\n
Satellite image shows fire damage and extensive blackened areas in and around the East-West pipeline pumping station in Saudi Arabia following the September 11, 2026 drone attack.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0 Satellite image (c) 2026 Vantor <\/p>\n
Why Hormuz actors still matter and the full corridor cannot be built now
\nIt is difficult to imagine that the IMEC, if and when it becomes a reality, would move trade fully away from Hormuz. Saudi and UAE ports in the Persian Gulf that are key hubs on the route would still be impacted by any tensions around the strait.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Drone-hit Saudi oil pipeline to remain non-operational for weeks \u2013 AP<\/p>\n
The route will have to be recalibrated to ports like Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, to make it bypass Hormuz. However,\u00a0in the last few months ships have been attacked off the coast of Oman and as far west as Yemen. Even the land corridor may not be fully safe in a regional conflict, as shown by the many Iranian missile hits on Saudi Arabia. That is a point missed by Trump, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who in April called for advancing the IMEC to diversify export infrastructure away from the Hormuz bottleneck.
\nThe IMEC\u2019s viability depends on much more than physical infrastructure, such as ports and railway lines. Making the land connectivity part work requires deeper transport and political cooperation across the Middle East, and specifically Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel. That is no longer easy to pull together after Israeli forces invaded Gaza. The widespread public anger in the Arab world makes it nearly impossible for the Gulf monarchies to agree to such collaboration with Israel, the war with regional rival Iran notwithstanding. Finance is another issue, with no firm overall funding commitments or construction timelines in place. The corridor remains a long-term proposal rather than an operational alternative to existing energy and trade routes.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Hard to port: India defies Washington\u2019s pressure to deal with Iran<\/p>\n
So where does IMEC stand?\u00a0
\nIndia and its partners are still backing the project. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni reaffirmed their commitment to the IMEC in May and called for\u00a0a first ministerial meeting on the corridor to take concrete steps toward its implementation this year.
\nStill, despite the urgency created by the Middle East conflict and Trump\u2019s comments, a fully functioning IMEC is years away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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