Georgia was among more than 40 countries identified in a White House report as being associated with elevated risks of illegal transshipment of goods to the United States to evade U.S. tariffs on Chinese products.
According to the report titled “The Great Transshipment Scam,” Chinese goods subject to high U.S. tariffs are increasingly being routed through third countries, where they may be relabeled, repackaged, minimally processed, or accompanied by altered documentation to create the appearance of a different country of origin before entering the U.S. market.
The report groups the identified jurisdictions into three categories: “Diversified Scale Leaders,” including Canada, the European Union and India; “Scale Leaders with Significant Economic Integration with China,” including Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey; and “Small, Opportunistic Chinese Targets,” the biggest tier, which includes Georgia alongside countries such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Morocco and Uzbekistan.
“Azerbaijan and Georgia provide rail and dry port transit, consolidation, and overland-to-maritime connections,” the report says.
Georgia is also listed in the report’s “Functional Architecture of the Shadow Transshipment Network” as an illustrative country in the Belt and Road overland nodes cluster, alongside Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, with a core role in rail and dry-port transit, consolidation, and overland-to-maritime handoff.
Asked following a briefing on August 18 to comment on Georgia’s inclusion in the report, Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze questioned whether the document was based on facts.
“Is there any specific fact there?.. I don’t think there is any specific fact…We always ask for facts, but then they cannot provide us with facts,” he said in response to a question from TV Pirveli.
When the reporter noted that the White House would presumably have based the report on facts, Kobakhidze pushed back.
“Why would it? Various sides have often written many things without facts. Therefore, do not draw such conclusions. It may write something based on facts, or it may not be based on facts…Someone may deliberately provide the White House with incorrect information,” he said.
“We are doing everything to ensure that no such scheme exists in the country. Let them provide us with facts on any issue, and we will respond accordingly,” Kobakhidze added.
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