The Nov 8th 2017 election of Donald Trump as the president of the United States has sparked Washington’s international confrontations in different areas the most important of which is its imposing sanctions and waging trade war on other states. In this condition, the Silk Road can offer a safe passage to cross over all these economic conflicts.
Silk Road has been a network of trade routes for centuries crucial to cultural interactions through connecting of regions in Eurasia’s East and West. Growing trade conflict between China and the United States has been among the most important events taking place in the world recently.
In late March, Trump made a claim that China was stealing technology and intellectual property from the US companies. Following the US claim, Trump filed a complaint against China with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and threatened to levy high tariff on the Chinese goods being imported to America and also impose restrictions on Chinese investments in the country.
Realities of the Trumpism in the United States have made China establish substructures hastily in order to retaliate US actions against that country.
It was in 2013 that the Chinese President Xi Jinping introduced the ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative, a plan to link China with Asia, Africa and Europe via a network of ports, railways and roads.
Now, nearly five years after the introduction of the plan, it has been taken into consideration more seriously.
To deal with the process of developing the regional countries’ port cities in line with revival of Silk Road, Iran will be an economically ideal choice because of its southeastern Chabahar Port as a great trade zone for international interactions.
Iran can also deliver its domestic products to the target markets more quickly through the new Silk Road.
So, Iran, enjoying appropriate capacities to transfer energy to South and East Asia through its maritime routes, can also be an important gate for great eastern economic traders like India and China.
This situation can promote Iran’s geo-economic position, substantially increase the expenses of any possible US confrontation with Tehran and provide a safe passage to overcome the threats made by the noisy US president.
