There's a country in the South Caucasus region that has all the makings of a fruitful and trusted strategic partner for the United States. A moderate Shi'a Muslim-majority state.
The country that heads the Southern Gas Corridor, a triple pipeline project that ensures Europe's energy security. The shortest way to link Asian and European markets at times of supply-chain obstacles all around the world.
And as it so happens, the only nation to border both Iran and Russia.
Yet somehow, the U.S. ally with all those attributes is currently ineligible to receive American foreign aid. Here's why.
In October 1992, the U.S. Senate adopted Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act. While the act was meant to accelerate the transition to democratic governance and free market economies in post-Soviet states, Section 907 made Azerbaijan the only such state prohibited from receiving direct assistance from the U.S. government in any form.
The loss of humanitarian and military aid was even more damaging to Azerbaijan at the time considering that 20% of its internationally recognized territory came under Armenian occupation in the early 1990s, due to the first Karabakh war.
President George W. Bush, understanding after the 9/11 attacks that America needed moderate and capable Muslim allies amid the war on terror, waived Section 907 in 2002 following a Senate amendment to the Freedom Support Act that enabled the U.S. president to take that step.
Each presidential administration followed suit in waiving Section 907 until 2023, but last year, President Joe Biden did not.
Azerbaijan, in its turn, supported the U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, provided crucial overflight, closely cooperated on counter-terrorism, and was the last NATO partner nation to stay with the American troops at Kabul International Airport.
Although Azerbaijan continues to stand tall as a true partner for the U.S. and the Armenian occupation is no longer in place following Azerbaijan's victories in wars during 2020 and 2023, the current ban on U.S. assistance holds back Azerbaijan's efforts to rebuild Karabakh.
The ban also stalls Azerbaijan's efforts to remove an estimated 1.5 million landmines that contaminate more than 13% of the entire nation's territories. This presents severe risks to civilians and hinders socioeconomic development.
Moreover, it is a strategic and moral fault for Washington.
With the current two-year ban on U.S. assistance to Azerbaijan nearing its end, President Donald Trump will soon have an opportunity to restore aid to Baku for the 2026 fiscal year (which begins October 1, 2025) — or he could remedy the situation even sooner. The Republican-majority Congress can help him.
President Trump should also look no further than Azerbaijan's alliance with another key U.S. ally: Israel. The millennia-old Jewish community in Azerbaijan has always been treated with deep respect and tolerance in this Muslim-majority nation, including in Krasnaya Sloboda, the only remaining all-Jewish village outside of the U.S. and Israel.
As opposed to the scourge that's surging globally, Jews in Azerbaijan don't report encounters with antisemitism. Earlier this year, Azerbaijan became the first country in the Muslim world to include a definition of antisemitism in its national school textbooks. Recently, its security services averted terror attacks against rabbis.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a longtime proponent of the paradigm that the Israel-Azerbaijan relationship has established for flourishing interfaith ties, will make his latest visit to Azerbaijan on May 8. This makes many in the region nervous, but it should make Washington resolute.
Accordingly, now is precisely the time for Washington to increase strategic engagement with Baku, manifesting the true potential of a trilateral U.S.-Israel-Azerbaijan alliance between these nations that share values, ideals, and objectives.
President Trump has demonstrated both in word and action that he views Israel as an important force for humanitarianism, innovation, stability, and religious tolerance on a global scale.
It's time for the president to acknowledge that Azerbaijan belongs in the same conversation.
Through executive orders and other avenues, President Trump has repeatedly shown that when he believes in something, he won't hesitate to act swiftly and decisively. Taking the steps to abolish Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act — or at the very least to waive it — should therefore be his next foreign policy bombshell.
Until then, Section 907 will continue to inexplicably hinder the development of U.S. relations with a crucial ally.
Paul Miller is a Chicago area political consultant. He's president of the news and public policy group Haym Salomon Center. His commentary has been published in USA Today, New York Daily News, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, and The Hill. Follow him on X and Tik Tok @pauliespoint. Read More Paul Miller — Here.
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