(C) EurasiaNet
This story was originally published by EurasiaNet and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgian government’s ‘deep state’ bromance with Trump remains unrequited [1]
['Irakli Machaidze']
Date: 2025-05
Georgian government officials are growing increasingly frustrated that the Trump administration is not enabling their steady drift toward authoritarianism.
In a May 13 open letter, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze portrayed the Georgian government and the Trump administration as ideological brothers, and reminded President Trump that Georgian officials had “openly talked about the criminal activities of the ‘deep state,’ USAID, NED, and other relevant entities” long before Trump administration officials started making similar, unsubstantiated claims.
Left unstated, but unmistakably intimated, was a plea for Trump to show Tbilisi some love.
“If we look at the public rhetoric of our government and your administration, there is a complete value and ideological coexistence between our views,” the letter states. “In the wake of such value and ideological equality, the first expectation of the Georgian people was that Georgia would be one of the first ones, in which your administration would express particular interest. … However, to the surprise of Georgian people and us, you have not received such attention towards Georgia yet.”
The letter went on to express disappointment that Trump’s statements about defeating the ‘deep state’ appear to be “just an attempt to rebrand” it. Kobakhidze also criticized the administration for engaging in dialogue with “even openly undemocratic and authoritarian states,” while ignoring Georgia.
Kobakhidze’s distress over the Trump administration’s lack of attention is understandable when considering just how important the ‘deep state’ narrative is to officials in Tbilisi. Georgian Dream leaders often justify their authoritarian actions by claiming they are battling to contain Georgia’s own ‘deep state.’ From advancing the controversial ‘foreign agents’ law and halting EU integration to ramping up repression and silencing civil society and independent media, officials frame their actions as a struggle against shadowy, foreign-funded elements bent on undermining Georgian traditional values and sovereignty.
Georgian Dream leaders also accuse the European Union of “anti-Georgian politics,” expressing hope that “by 2030, the EU will fully overcome the problem of informal oligarchic influence and the ‘deep state,’” clearing the way for Georgia’s accession.
The government’s fixation on shadowy conspiracies predates their use of the term ‘deep state.’ Years earlier, the party warned of a so-called ‘global war party,’ bent on dragging the country into the Russia-Ukraine conflict. They portrayed this war party as a hidden network allegedly manipulating Western governments.
During the 12-plus years it has controlled the government, the underlying rationale of Georgian Dream’s communications strategy has been protecting the interests of the party’s billionaire founder, Bidzina Ivanishvili. When he became entangled in a financial dispute with Credit Suisse, for example, Georgian Dream framed it as blackmail by unnamed external forces aiming to force Ivanishvili back into politics and push Georgia into war.
In the years leading up to the 2024 US presidential election, hopes rose in governing circles in Tbilisi that a Trump administration would tolerate, even support Georgian Dream’s embrace of authoritarian practices. Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze once said: “I expected that when the Trump administration came to power, it would thank the Georgian government for all of this,” referring to their early embrace of the ‘anti-deep state’ messaging.
Georgian Dream’s disappointment in Trump should not be surprising. While he popularized talk of “dismantling the deep state,” his version always differed from Georgian Dream’s. For Trump, the term refers to entrenched federal bureaucrats in Washington that he sees as politically biased, obstructionist, or disloyal. For Georgian Dream, the concept represents an all-powerful phantom force, everywhere and nowhere, allegedly out to get Bidzina Ivanishvili. Georgian Dream officials have erred in thinking that Trump had a global view of the ‘deep state,’ when his vision was limited to the United States.
It was with dismay that Georgian Dream leaders saw the US House of Representatives, which they thought was a body completely subservient to the president, adopt in early May the MEGOBARI Act, which openly seeks to place Georgia back on a democratic path toward “Euro-Atlantic integration.”
While Kobakhidze expressed hope that Trump’s “confrontation with the ‘deep state’ is sincere and will end in the ‘deep state's’ defeat,” Georgian Dream has already turned on some Trump allies in the House. Enemy #1 in Tbilisi now is Republican Congressman Joe Wilson, the act’s sponsor, who is cast as “one of the most severe manifestations of the ‘deep state’.”
Wilson, who is also co-chair of the US Helsinki Commission, so far is the only US official to publicly respond to Kobakhidze’s letter, slamming it as “obscene” for the prime minister’s “audacity to make demands of President Trump.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration officials remain silent.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://eurasianet.org/georgian-governments-deep-state-bromance-with-trump-remains-unrequited
Published and (C) by EurasiaNet
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/eurasianet/
