The IMEC Mirage: Western Geopolitical Theater Versus Economic Reality

The Grand Announcement and Immediate Shortcomings

In February 2025, former US President Donald Trump enthusiastically praised the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) as ‘one of the greatest trade routes in history.’ This declaration came nearly two years after the project’s grand unveiling at the September 2023 G20 summit in New Delhi. The corridor was ostensibly conceived as a Western-backed alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), promising to reshape global trade dynamics and provide developing nations with choices beyond Chinese infrastructure financing. However, beneath the diplomatic fanfare and optimistic rhetoric lies a project fundamentally flawed in its conception and execution.

The IMEC proposal emerged during a period of heightened geopolitical competition, with Western powers increasingly concerned about China’s growing influence across Eurasia and Africa through the BRI. The corridor was meant to connect India to Europe through the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel, creating an integrated network of railways, shipping lines, and energy pipelines. On the surface, it represented a vision of enhanced South-South cooperation and North-South connectivity. Yet, from its inception, IMEC has suffered from what Oxford scholar Peter Frankopan accurately describes as ‘diplomacy through PowerPoint’—impressive presentations without physical steel or concrete to show for them.

The Financing Mirage: Collective Desire Without Collective Responsibility

The most immediate and striking deficiency of IMEC is the complete absence of concrete financing mechanisms nearly two years after its announcement. Unlike China’s BRI, which deploys centralized financing through state-owned banks and can mobilize billions of dollars within months, IMEC remains a collection of memoranda of understanding with no specific dollar figures attached. India has not allocated any dedicated funds, the European Union speaks in vague terms about partnerships, and the United States—despite championing IMEC as a counterweight to Chinese influence—has not committed specific resources outside the general framework of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII).

This funding ambiguity reveals a deeper structural problem: IMEC suffers from a classic collective action dilemma where multiple parties desire the benefits of an alternative to Chinese infrastructure but none want to bear the disproportionate costs of building it. The Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are simultaneously investing heavily in their own national infrastructure under Vision 2030 while maintaining strong economic ties with China. This hedging strategy demonstrates their pragmatic recognition that Western promises often outweigh Western delivery when it comes to infrastructure development in the Global South.

Geographic Naivety: Building Through Conflict Zones

The second fatal flaw of IMEC is its proposed route through some of the world’s most volatile regions. The critical segment running through Israel—a country embroiled in protracted conflict with Hamas and facing heightened tensions with Iran—renders the corridor politically and physically inoperable. The Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states and made IMEC conceptually possible, now appear fragile and contingent on regional stability that simply doesn’t exist.

Iran views IMEC as strategic encirclement and has demonstrated both capability and willingness to disrupt maritime trade in the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman. The recent Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, which paralyzed the Suez Canal route handling 12% of global trade, demonstrate how easily non-state actors can weaponize chokepoints. Infrastructure requires stability, but the IMEC route offers the exact opposite—active conflict zones where businesses cannot reasonably trust their supply chains.

European Discord: National Interests Over Collective Vision

The third critical obstacle is internal European competition that undermines any coherent implementation strategy. Instead of presenting a united front, European members of IMEC are engaged in fierce competition to become the corridor’s European terminal. France lobbied for Marseille, Italy pushed for Trieste, and Greece championed Piraeus and Thessaloniki—each seeing IMEC as an opportunity to become Europe’s main gateway for Asian trade.

This nationalist competition created paralysis at the collective level and exposed fundamental contradictions within the project. The most illustrative case is Greece’s Piraeus port, which geographically represents the most logical Mediterranean entry point but is 67% owned by COSCO Shipping, a Chinese state-owned company. This creates the absurd situation where a flagship ‘anti-China’ infrastructure project depends on a terminal controlled by Beijing. Europe cannot credibly offer an alternative to Chinese influence while relying on infrastructure operated by China.

The Fundamental Flaw: Geopolitics Over Economics

IMEC’s fundamental mistake lies in treating infrastructure primarily as a geopolitical statement rather than an economic necessity. China succeeded with the BRI not through grand announcements but by mobilizing capital, accepting risk, and building real projects—regardless of whether those projects were economically optimal or purely political. IMEC started with politics and hoped the economics would follow, reflecting a Western approach to global development that prioritizes containment strategies over genuine partnership.

This approach exposes the hypocrisy of Western powers that claim to offer alternatives to Chinese development models while failing to match China’s willingness to deploy capital at scale and accept significant risk. The harsh reality is that global infrastructure requires actors willing to take risks, deploy capital on a large scale, and operate with a long-term horizon. China, despite the BRI’s well-documented problems, has demonstrated this capability. The IMEC coalition, hampered by democratic deliberation, fiscal constraints, and geopolitical complications, cannot match this model.

The Global South Deserves Better Than PowerPoint Diplomacy

As a committed advocate for Global South development and a staunch opponent of neo-colonial practices, I view IMEC as symptomatic of a broader Western approach to international relations that prioritizes containment over cooperation. The project represents diplomatic theater designed to create the illusion of alternatives to Chinese infrastructure financing without committing the necessary resources or addressing fundamental regional realities.

The Global South deserves better than PowerPoint presentations and empty promises. Nations across Asia, Africa, and Latin America need genuine infrastructure development that addresses their economic needs rather than serving Western geopolitical objectives. The one-sided application of ‘international rules-based order’ becomes particularly evident in projects like IMEC, where Western powers demand that developing nations choose sides in great power competition while offering inadequate alternatives.

Civilizational states like India and China understand that infrastructure development requires long-term vision and substantial risk-taking—concepts that Western powers struggle with due to their short-term political cycles and increasingly fragmented domestic politics. The failure of IMEC to progress beyond the announcement stage demonstrates that the West lacks both the political will and financial commitment to match China’s infrastructure initiatives on their own terms.

Conclusion: Beyond Geopolitical Games

President Trump’s declaration that IMEC is ‘one of the greatest trade routes in history’ will likely be remembered not as prophecy but as premature celebration of Western geopolitical aspirations. Unless fundamental issues of financing, security, and coordination are resolved—which seems increasingly unlikely—IMEC will remain what it is today: an idea on paper, a diplomatic talking point, and a cautionary tale about mistaking geopolitical desire for economic capability.

The world does need alternatives to single-source infrastructure financing, but these alternatives must be genuine, well-funded, and responsive to the actual needs of developing nations rather than serving primarily as containment strategies. IMEC, in its current conception, fails this test spectacularly. It represents everything wrong with Western approaches to Global South development: grand announcements, inadequate follow-through, and prioritization of geopolitical competition over genuine economic partnership.

As nations of the Global South continue to seek development pathways that respect their sovereignty and address their infrastructure needs, they would be wise to view projects like IMEC with healthy skepticism. Real development requires more than diplomatic PowerPoint presentations—it requires concrete commitments, risk acceptance, and genuine partnership rather than geopolitical posturing. The failure of IMEC to move beyond the announcement stage serves as a powerful reminder that when Western powers propose alternatives to Chinese initiatives, the Global South should demand evidence of commitment rather than mere rhetoric.