As Donald Trump was inaugurated as 47^th president of the United States, thousands in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, joined a huge US-Georgia Friendship march on the evening of January 20, rallying for stronger ties between the two countries.

Meanwhile, Georgia’s former president, Salome Zourabichvili, regarded by many in Georgia and abroad as the country’s sole legitimate ruler, was in attendance in Washington.

“While I am attending the inauguration in the name of freedom loving Georgia, Georgians are marching in solidarity with their American friends,” Zourabichvili wrote on X.

Although her term ended in December, Zourabichvili has vowed her loyalty to the Georgian people and a free, Euro-Atlantic-aligned country. She continues her diplomatic duties, and, according to her press office, held high-level bilateral talks with officials during her visit to Washington DC, where she has was received as a head of state.

While the former president received an invitation, Georgia’s current president, Mikheil Kavelashvili, who was voted in following a single-candidate election in December 2024, did not, and neither did any members of the governing Georgian Dream (GD) party, which is widely accused of rigging the October 2024 parliamentary elections.

On the evening of Trump’s inauguration, demonstrators in Tbilisi, who have been on the streets 54 consecutive nights protesting GD’s recent EU U-turn and calling for a rerun of the elections, waved hundreds of American and Georgian flags, banged on drums and marched down the central Rustaveli Avenue, a clear signal to the States of the importance to Georgians of US support in their ongoing resistance movement.

Protesters chanted slogans such as “Glory to Georgia! Glory to America! Glory to our friendship!” and “Bound by freedom, strengthened by partnership”.

Some protesters held up photos of US Representative Joe Wilson, who has emerged as one of GD’s fiercest international critics and has been very vocal in his support for demonstrators and a democratic, European future for Georgia.

Many Georgians look to the US as both a model of effective democracy and the antithesis of President Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which they see in turn as the model for GD’s increasingly repressive rule as the party attempts to crush Georgia’s pro-EU movement and turn the country back into Moscow’s sphere of influence.

“Georgia can either become a big success for America or a big challenge in the Caucasus and Black Sea regions – areas Russia has long sought to dominate. The Kremlin’s new tactics involve installing puppet regimes devoted to them. We need America, but I think America needs us to,” Zourabichvili stated during an interview with Fox News she gave while in the States.

While there are reservations about Trump among the younger generations in Georgia, all those fighting for their country’s democratic freedom realise the power the US can potentially wield in helping forge their country’s future course, namely through the continued isolation of the GD government via sanctions and non-recognition, which protesters hope will result in the party’s collapse.

Meanwhile, GD members believe Trump’s presidency will work in their favour and are banking on the new US administration somehow shifting Europe’s current, less-than-friendly view of the Georgian government.

On January 20 Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze noted that Trump’s inauguration marked a “turning point” for the US and an opportunity to “reboot” Georgia-America relations.

The PM also expressed hope that Trump would be victorious in his “ambitious plan to defeat the “deep state”, a term GD uses to describe an oligarchic network operating in certain Western, “anti-Georgian” states, and under the control of a so-called “Global War Party” which seeks to incite global conflicts, including dragging Georgia into Russia’s war with Ukraine.