By Greg Vartan
Special to the Mirror-Spectator
Today, our community is at a crossroads. President Biden let us down. President Trump is not the answer. Let me explain, offer my views, and share what I believe we need to move forward.
Like many Armenians, I supported President Biden and was pleased when he became the first US President since Reagan to recognize the Armenian Genocide. But while he acknowledged the past, he failed to take decisive action against Azerbaijan’s genocide of Artsakh’s indigenous Armenians. His administration provided crucial aid to Ukraine while ignoring Armenia’s pleas for help. Biden and his team, including former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, prioritized “stability” in the South Caucasus over justice, waiving Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act in 2024, which enabled Azerbaijan’s military buildup. Power, despite her work on genocide prevention, stayed largely indifferent as Azerbaijan carried out ethnic cleansing in Artsakh. The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) even gave the Biden administration a failing grade for aiding Azerbaijan’s 2023 genocide of Artsakh Armenians and failing to hold the Aliyev regime accountable, leading to displaced Armenians and refugees.
In the 2024 election, many Armenian-Americans who had proudly supported Democrats for decades shifted their hopes to Trump. However, we must be extremely wary of putting our faith in a president who openly praises strongmen like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — calling him a “very smart guy” as recently as December — while pushing an “America First” isolationist agenda that weakens global safeguards against aggression and territorial expansion. By undermining these structures, Trump risks plunging Armenia into a more dangerous and unpredictable geopolitical environment, with fewer checks on authoritarian regimes and less support from Western institutions.
Despite their flaws, these Western institutions have helped Armenia. Since 2018, its economy has grown by 44 percent, and EU monitors have helped deter Azerbaijani attacks, though their mission is now ending. This is why I disagree with Trump’s worldview in the strongest possible terms, because he prioritizes power over principle. I believe we need moral leadership and strong representation in Washington now more than ever. I’m running for Congress to give our community the voice in the federal government that it deserves.
