Georgia’s economy minister announced Monday that the state will build the Anaklia deep-sea port on its own, under a “landlord model” — full state ownership, no shares sold, no strategic investor. The Chinese-Singaporean consortium selected in 2024 to hold 49% of the project was not mentioned once. That silence was the news: Beijing is out of the most important infrastructure project on the eastern Black Sea.

It is the outcome that the Trump administration’s pressure campaign in the South Caucasus was designed to produce. It is also exactly half a victory.