If the U.S. Senate wants to avoid another tragic crisis like Ukraine along Russia’s periphery, it needs to stop encouraging Moscow’s neighbors into unnecessarily confrontational relationships with Russia. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what most members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee took steps towards last month when they advanced the MEGOBARI Act. This legislation is part of an effort to incentivize Georgia to limit its economic relations with Russia and more thoroughly align itself with the transatlantic approach to the war in Ukraine, regardless of the potential repercussions to Georgia’s economy and security. If enacted, the actual effect will be to push Georgia into deeper relationships with non-Western partners while seriously contradicting the Trump administration’s efforts to reevaluate American commitments across Europe and reestablish working relations with Russia to bring peace to Ukraine through a negotiated long-term settlement.
At the end of March 2025, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed the “Mobilizing and Enhancing Georgia’s Options for Building Accountability, Resilience, and Independence Act”. According to the bill’s cosponsors, Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Jim Risch (R-ID), the legislation would support “the people of Georgia as their government continues its violent assaults on peaceful protestors and reaffirms U.S. support for Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration.” Chairman Risch specified that the “U.S. supports the Georgian people as they struggle for the right to self-determination” and that this bill “will give the U.S. tools to help Georgians restore fairness to their political system.”
The “MEGOBARI” Act, as the bill is commonly known and which translates to “friend” in the Georgian language, was first introduced in the last session of Congress by the former chairman of the Helsinki Commission, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC). Another, much more severe, piece of legislation also under discussion is the Georgian Nightmare Non-Recognition Act, which would effectively prohibit U.S. officials from recognizing the current Georgian government while simultaneously declaring that former president Salome Zourabichvili is the only legitimate leader of the country following contested election last October.
MEGOBARI includes a dozen statements of policy that almost all focus on the U.S. supporting Georgia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, civil society, democratic values, and its constitutionally-mandated intention to pursue EU and NATO integration. Nevertheless, if Tbilisi were “to combat Russian aggression” and enact its own and enforce Western sanctions on Russia, the legislation calls on the U.S. to review and, “as appropriate,” expand its security and defense assistance to Georgia. It does not, however, promise actually to defend Georgia if the policies being advocated lead to a new war with Russia—any more than the US defended Georgia during the war of 2008. It is wickedly irresponsible to try to force another country into profoundly dangerous actions when you have no intention of saving them from the consequences.
The act also calls for U.S. government investigation into any Georgian officials that have been involved in “blocking Euro-Atlantic integration” or who have undermined “peace, security, stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity” of Georgia and to apply property and visa sanctions upon those deemed in violation.
As the Quincy Institute laid out in a recent policy brief, as a result of the Ukraine War and Russia’s continued support for Georgia’s two separatist territories, Tbilisi is facing an extremely precarious security environment. To be sure, the ruling Georgian Dream party has at the same time—sometimes ruthlessly—advanced its own domestic political agenda, including by enacting legislation to target external funding of civil society organizations (CSOs) and media as well as threatening to ban political parties and politicians associated with the former president Mikheil Saakashvili. The State Department has criticized these measures.
Nevertheless, if legislation such as MEGOBARI is passed into law, it will have profoundly negative effects on American (and likely European) relations with Georgia and their ability to encourage the very developments such bills and their backers seek to engender in the country.
Whether the U.S. likes it or not, Georgia’s economy is strongly linked to and dependent on trade with Russia. In 2024 total trade turnover between Russia and Georgia amounted to around $2.5 billion, or 11 percent, of Georgia’s total trade volume, behind only Turkey. While Georgia’s total trade figures with the U.S. were around $1.9 billion last year, Russia’s intake of total Georgian exports is over four times larger than that of the U.S. and is critical for key sectors such as wine and agricultural products.
Remittances from Russia have also long been an important factor, as many thousands of Georgians journey to Russia for better work opportunities. While the total share from Russia is decreasing, some $540 million in remittances were sent from the country in 2024 out of a total of $3.4 billion, down from $1.5 billion the preceding year. Following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, significant numbers of Russians seeking refuge fled into Georgia, motivated by Tbilisi’s offers of visa-free travel and work privileges for up to one year for Russian citizens. Since 2022, these “relocants” have registered some 30,000 businesses and contributed to the Georgian economy (though their relative wealth when compared to their Georgian peers has intensified local inequalities).
From a security perspective, the Georgian government has been in an uncertain position vis-a-vis Russia since at least 2008, when Saakashvili’s government undertook actions in the breakaway region of South Ossetia that contributed to a direct conflict between the Russian and Georgian armed forces. Following this, Moscow recognized the independence of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the other breakaway republic, and Tbilisi severed diplomatic ties. Since then, Russia has increased its military footprint in the 20 percent of Georgian territory that these two de facto states exercise control over.
Like Ukraine, Georgia was also offered a pathway to future NATO membership earlier that year at the alliance’s Bucharest Summit. But, just as in Ukraine, Georgia’s NATO partners did not enter the fray when the Russian army was mere miles outside Tbilisi. The U.S. and Europe must recognize the immense recklessness and irresponsibility of encouraging countries on Russia’s borders to effectively challenge Russia when the West has zero intention of actually defending them from the potential consequences.
Since coming to power in 2012, the Georgian Dream party has explicitly sought to engage in “firm and principled” dialogue with the Russian government, believing, rightly, that there is no realistic military solution to its ethno-political conflicts and Moscow’s utilization of that discord for its own ends.
While still backing Kiev in international organizations and supporting Ukraine on a humanitarian level, the Georgian government has pursued an exceedingly cautious foreign and security policy since the outbreak of full-scale war in Ukraine.
Simultaneously, the Georgian Dream government has pursued domestic policies that seek to limit foreign financing of CSOs, media outlets, and political parties while stigmatizing those that accept such funding. While it is common in the U.S. and Europe for these policies to be used as justification for labelling the Georgian Dream’s rule as akin to “Russian-style tyranny” or even asserting that it is a “Russian puppet,” the reality is more nuanced. While the Georgian government may certainly be seeking to centralize power and reduce political competition, many in Washington would be hard pressed to morally justify why legislation such as MEGOBARI are necessary for Georgia when its neighbor, Azerbaijan, pursues much more dictatorial policies at home and a “multi-vector” foreign policy abroad and is by and large accepted, if not embraced.
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If put into law, MEGOBARI would likely further alienate the Georgian government from the U.S. and limit America’s ability to seriously influence local developments at a time when Washington is beginning to pursue a new policy toward Russia and its post-Soviet neighbors. Part of the risk of such legislation is that by effectively choosing sides in internal Georgian political processes and encouraging sanctions on individuals with broad justifications, the U.S. will inadvertently incentivize the Georgian Dream to pursue deeper relations with other, non-Western partners.
If Washington is truly fearful of Tbilisi drifting into the grasps of Moscow, Beijing, or Tehran, then it should pursue a policy of strategic empathetic engagement and linkage with the Georgian government. Doing so will not guarantee a subservient foreign policy from Tbilisi nor will it ensure that they dramatically reduce their relations with those other capitals. What it will do, however, is offer the U.S. the ability to sensibly influence decisions made in Georgia by engaging in diplomatic bargaining.
It is clear that under the Georgian Dream government Tbilisi is set on pursuing a foreign policy of diversification and hedging—what is widely called among former Soviet countries “multi-vectorism.” In an increasingly insecure world, not to mention region, such a policy makes eminently good sense from a Georgian perspective. Rather than seeking to reverse this trend, the U.S. may be able to achieve strategic benefits and, importantly, positively affect the human rights environment and state of democracy in Georgia by pursuing a more practical policy towards that country.
