India, the United States, the EU, France, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been involved in this pact that the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen defined as “nothing less than historic,”[1] while the former U.S. President Biden, India’s Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman strongly emphasized the impact of the project. Moreover, during the official visit of the Indian PM in Washington in February 2025, President Donald Trump also praised IMEC as “one of the greatest trade routes in history

In the last two years, the reliability and the security of trade corridors and supply chains have dramatically emerged as a global concern: after IMEC’s launch, the implications of the war between Israel and Hamas have spread a condition of high vulnerability and instability in the “wider” Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen), severely affecting the concrete implementation of some transport corridor projects such as the INSTC (International North-South Trade Corridor, crossing Iran and Russia) and some maritime trade routes crossing Hormuz and along the Red Sea. In this perspective, IMEC could offer an alternative option to the transit through the Suez Canal, given the disruption provoked by the attacks of Houthi militias targeting ships crossing the Bab al-Mandeb Strait—between the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea—paralyzing the Suez Canal route that handles 12 percent of global trade.

However, the geopolitical landscape in which the IMEC initiative emerged has been partially reshaped by ongoing conflicts and instability in the Middle East, persistent funding constraints, and the expansion of competing projects, most notably the Middle Corridor-Trans Caspian International Transport Route (TIRT). These developments raised questions about the practical feasibility of IMEC and prompted discussions about revising its original infrastructural concept through geographic diversification and the development of alternative transport routes.

IMEC’s original intent and strategic rationale

IMEC was conceived to strengthen supply-chain resilience by reducing exposure to geopolitical disruptions and natural shocks that can interrupt trade flows to global markets. Within the broader effort to diversify global transport routes and reduce reliance on traditional corridors and dominant suppliers—such as Russia for energy and China for trade and critical minerals—the IMEC project aims to establish an alternative corridor that is not controlled by China and that bypasses the Red Sea maritime route, which has been increasingly disrupted by Houthi attacks.

Following the Abraham Accords in 2020, the original tripartite cooperation group among the U.S., Israel, and the UAE was extended to India in 2021, creating the I2U2 format, a forerunner and source of inspiration for the IMEC initiative.

The initial IMEC project envisioned two sections: an eastern maritime link between India and the Gulf and a northern section that would connect the Arabian Peninsula to Europe. This overland corridor will be based on a new railway network to link the Gulf with the Mediterranean via Jordan and Israel, while undersea cables and pipelines would facilitate the exchange of data, clean electricity and green hydrogen supply.[4] The Israeli port of Haifa in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as Gulf and Arabian Sea ports, will play the role of shipping hubs in this connectivity blueprint.

The implementation of this strategic corridor could have a significant impact on global trade by offering an attractive alternative to transit through the Suez Canal, a major chokepoint vulnerable to geopolitical tensions, natural disruptions, and technical accidents, such as the blockages in 2021 and 2023. According to initial estimates, IMEC’s overland transport route could reduce logistics costs by 30% and transit times by 40% compared with shipping via the Suez Canal