The Hill: Section 907 no longer reflects US realities, interests

The US-based The Hill has published an article on the complete repeal of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which restricts direct US assistance to Azerbaijan. Caliber.Az is republishing excerpts from the piece for its readers.

Editor’s note: The author of the article is Hollie McKay —  a war correspondent and foreign policy analyst who has spent two decades reporting from conflict zones. 

“American drivers are paying more at the pump because Iran has turned the Strait of Hormuz into a war zone, and the safest overland alternative runs straight through a country Congress has punished by an obsolete law for 34 years.

The 1992 Freedom Support Act bars direct U.S. government assistance to Baku, a distinction no other former Soviet state carries. It was written, however, for a war that ended more than 30 years ago. The U.S. plays a whole different ballgame in the South Caucasus, a vital nexus between Europe and Central Asia, and between Russia and the Middle East, that combines energy and geostrategy.

The timing isn’t just about tidying up outdated law; this comes at a time when Iran and the U.S. are at war. China has been carefully tightening its grip on Central Asia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan are closer to a real peace than ever. It is now up to Congress to back that talk of partnership with actual legislative action.

President Trump hosted Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Aug. 8, 2025. There, the two leaders initialed a peace framework and signed a joint declaration. It was, by any measure, a genuine diplomatic breakthrough after 37 years of hostility.

The U.S. and Iran have been entangled in conflict since Feb. 28, 2026. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which once carried roughly a fifth of the world’s traded oil remains well below normal. 

That has turned Azerbaijan’s Middle Corridor, the Iran-bypassing land route linking Central Asia to Europe through the Caspian and the South Caucasus, from a hedge into a necessity. 

In the months ahead, this route will matter more. Maintaining a decades-old sanction against the country anchoring its western end does not read as cautious geopolitics in Baku. This reads as Washington being unsure of its goals. 

Every president since George W. Bush has waived the sanction against Baku annually, including Trump. He extended the waiver again last August, citing counterterrorism and border-security needs. A statute the executive branch has neutered every year for more than two decades isn’t protecting anyone; it’s an insult that Azerbaijan has learned to live with — a legal loose end that Congress could tie off in a single vote.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s (R-Fla.) bill, which has gathered co-sponsors and is now before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, would repeal the relevant section of the 1992 outright, citing Azerbaijan’s role as a steadfast ally and the border agreement already reached with Armenia. With Republican majorities in both chambers and an administration already on record waiving the provision, this is the most favorable environment for repeal since the law was written.

It simply requires Congress to admit that it no longer serves American interests to maintain Section 907 against a country now central to American energy security and an ongoing effort to counter Iran and Russia in the region,” the author writes.