There are no current or planned ceasefire negotiations between Iran and the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump called for an “economic D-Day” against Iran on August 19; when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent fleshed that threat out on August 24, the announcement consisted of a warning shot rather than any new immediate penalties. 

Until another ceasefire is agreed upon by both sides, global trade routes through the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea are clouded with risk. But existing trade routes are not the only ones impacted by the conflict. The war in Iran is also holding hostage the future of trade and connectivity across the wider Eurasian continent. 

On July 8, after the previous ceasefire fell apart, U.S. forces launched missile strikes against multiple targets in Iran. In one instance, Financial Times reported cruise missiles struck and visibly damaged the Agh Tekeh Khan (also spelled “Aq Tekeh Khan”) railway bridge near the city of Aqqala in northern Iran. While several bridges and railways were targeted, this is one of only two railroads that lead out of Iran into Turkmenistan. It connects two separate railroads: the Iran-Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan Railway and the eastern route of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC). 

According to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), India, Iran, and Russia agreed to the construction of the INSTC in September 2000, with many more countries, including Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, joining before the end of the decade. Another initiative, the European Union-financed Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus- Asia (TRACECA) program, was formed in Belgium in 1993 to develop a transport corridor linking Europe to Central Asia. Iran joined as a member in June 2009. Two years later Iran, Oman, Qatar, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan signed the Ashgabat Agreement, to increase and simplify transportation and trade across the region. Qatar withdrew in 2013, but Kazakhstan, Pakistan, and India signed on in recent years. 

Many of these countries have invested resources into expanding railways across the region, especially in Iran with its rail lines stretching from Turkmenistan to ports along the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. For landlocked countries like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, access to the ports of Bandar Abbas and Chabahar are opportunities to trade more easily across oceans. 

On June 28, Iran and Kazakhstan signed an agreement allowing the latter to build and operate a terminal at Shahid Rajaee Port near the city and port of Bandar Abbas. The 27-year agreement, with two years to build and 25 years to operate, allocates 15 hectares of space at the Iranian port, with Kazakhstan providing privately sourced investment funds for its construction. The two railway corridors passing through Kazakhstan to the coast of Iran means that Kazakhstan will see the benefits of the project relatively quickly.

The only Iranian port sitting on the Arabian Sea, the port of Chabahar, is a lucrative location for Uzbekistan by providing access to the ocean. Uzbekistan signed an agreement with Iran in 2022 to construct infrastructure facilities at the port. This would establish a trade route from India’s ports to Chabahar and send goods by rail through Iran and Turkmenistan. Compared to Uzbekistan’s agreement with Iran to develop a logistics center in Bandar Abbas, the port of Chabahar is a closer and more secure route to India.

India has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to develop the port of Chabahar since 2015. The port’s location allows India to bypass China and Pakistan and would be unaffected by future closures of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. Amid China’s pledge to invest $62 billion on connectivity with Pakistan, particularly the port of Gwadar, India’s presence at Chabahar is a both political move and a trade opportunity. India and Iran signed a $370 million, 10-year deal in 2024 to allow the former to operate at the port. 

Iran and Pakistan have made multiple agreements to improve connectivity with one another’s highways. Al Jazeera reported in April that Pakistan issued an order allowing for shipments from third parties unable to reach Iranian ports to pass through its ports and arrive in Iran overland. The quickest route, from the port of Gwadar to Gabd at the Iranian border, takes 2-3 hours. The continuation of the war shows how Pakistan can act as an alternate route when Iran’s ports are closed off.  

When the United States resumed attacks in early July, Iran’s railways and ports were hit hard, damaging the Agh Tekeh Khan railway bridge, multiple bridges, and a tunnel near the port of Bandar Abbas, and key infrastructure, including a maritime traffic control tower, at the port of Chabahar. 

Although the site for the Kazakh terminal at Bandar Abbas Port was not damaged, Kazakhstan’s government is delaying its construction. Before the war, Uzbekistan paused plans to establish its own presence at Chabahar. Now the war is forcing Uzbekistan to hold off on the plan indefinitely. 

The Trump administration’s heavy sanctions against the port and its refusal to grant another sanctions exemption waiver raised concerns in India regarding Chabahar’s safety. According to an April article from Bloomberg, India was considering handing control of its section of the port back to Iran before the waiver expiration.

The war in Iran has forced the Central Asian states and India to look for alternate routes. Last July, Uzbekistan signed a trilateral agreement on a feasibility study for the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan Trans-Afghan Railway Project. The Tashkent Times reported in June that the feasibility study is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Pakistani representatives talked with Kazakh delegates at the end of July about opening terminals in Pakistan’s ports at Karachi, Qasim, and Gwadar. A transport corridor through Afghanistan into Pakistan would allow Central Asian states to bypass Iran and connect to more stable ports. This route suggests that Iran is at risk of losing its Central Asian and Indian customers. 

However, the war itself does not make Iranian ports or railways less valuable for trade. The routes through Iran are faster and cheaper than shipping goods through the Black Sea, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and around the Arabian Peninsula. As Fatemah Aman wrote in The National Interest, “the conflict has not erased these advantages.” 

The Trans-Afghan Corridor would be geographically insulated from future Iranian instability, though not from any future instability in Afghanistan. It would reach Pakistan quickly, but its construction has not begun. The corridor is estimated to cost between $4.6 billion and $7 billion and will take at least five years to complete. While the corridor through Afghanistan is decoupled from the risks associated with the Iran war, it is a future solution instead of a present one and burdened by its own set of risks, not the least of which is the tense Afghanistan-Pakistan relationship.

The biggest concern overshadowing the projects with the ports and railroads in Iran is the likelihood of them being attacked. At a time when the Trump administration is pursuing greater cooperation with Central and South Asia, U.S. strikes and economic warcraft pose the greatest risk to these initiatives. The United States has not only further destabilized the Middle East, but it is also disrupting multiple Eurasian trade plans that have been in the works for decades.