President Kais Saied’s recent outreach to non-Western powers – from visits to Beijing and Tehran to hints of Moscow ties – has raised the question of whether Tunisia is ‘turning East.’ But is President Saied truly reorienting Tunisia’s foreign policy towards Eastern powers and away from its historical Western alliances, and adopting a ‘non-aligned position’?
While Saied may gesture rhetorically towards counter-hegemonic actors like China, Russia and Iran, Tunisia’s strategic long-term investments – those creating institutional lock-in effects (established arrangements that become difficult to change) and structural dependencies (relationships where Tunisia relies on other countries for essential resources) – remain firmly anchored with European and North American actors. A close reading shows that Saied’s Eastern engagements are characterized by cost-driven opportunism, populist messaging, and symbolic gestures rather than genuine strategic reorientation. Tunisia’s alignment with the West, on the other hand, is strategic, but its overreliance may be a missed opportunity that could deny Tunisia more policy options in an increasingly multipolar world.
Symbolism vs. strategy: understanding Tunisa’s Eastern engagements
The narrative of Tunisia’s ‘pivot East’ has been advanced by two groups with distinct motivations. Western-friendly opposition forces promote this perception to undermine external material support for Saied’s autocratizing government. Meanwhile, elements within Saied’s administration project an illusion of diversification to satisfy domestic constituencies frustrated by relationships with Europe and the United States increasingly understood as neo-colonial.
Both sides gain tactical advantages from these narratives in the current environment of shifting great power competition. The opposition aims to portray Saied as an unreliable ally of the West while the government seeks to cultivate a populist image of nominal autonomy – without altering essential strategic partnerships. Publicizing an unapologetic pro-Western stance is politically costly, especially since US approval ratings in Tunisia dropped to just 10 percent in the wake of 7th October. These narratives are mutually reinforcing and have gained traction despite substantial evidence to the contrary.
A closer examination of Tunisia’s ties with China and Russia reveals a much thinner engagement than the ‘pivot East’ narrative suggests. Two recent reports by the United States Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office, developed under the M-DIME Research Project, explicitly reject concerns in American policy circles over Tunisia’s security cooperation with China and Russia, rating such engagement as ‘very low’.
The reports’ findings fit a broader pattern: despite rhetorical gestures, Saied has maintained Tunisia’s traditional strategic orientation in all domains where long-term dependencies and lock-in effects matter most. His interactions with China, Russia and Iran consistently reflect opportunistic cost calculations, populist messaging and symbolic gestures. My own quantitative analysis of Tunisian online press reports supports this interpretation. References linking Saied’s Ministers of Foreign Affairs with Iran, Russia and China appear more than three times less frequently than those linking them to US and European partners.
Trade data offers further evidence that Saied’s approach to Eastern powers is opportunistic, not structural. Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Tunisian exports to Russia declined sharply, reverting to pre-2006 levels. Paradoxically, the democratic period preceding Saied’s presidency saw the highest levels of Tunisian exports to Russia. Trade with Iran is even more negligible. While China exports large volumes to Tunisia, notably of electronics and machinery, Tunisia ships very little in return, mostly raw materials and olive oil. In fact, Tunisia’s trade deficit with China is among its largest, at over 8.4 billion dinars in 2023 (around $2.68 billion at the time) – hardly indicative of a balanced partnership.
On the import side, Tunisia has increased purchases of discounted Russian petroleum products since 2022 – a decision driven by price advantages in a challenging economic context rather than strategic realignment. The same logic underpins Tunisia’s adoption of Chinese telecommunications technology (Huawei) over European alternatives (Ericsson/Alcatel/Siemens) as well as increased imports of East Asian automotive products. These consumer-facing and commercially driven decisions reflect pragmatic cost considerations rather than strategic reorientation.
Enduring dependencies: why Tunisia still looks West
By contrast, Tunisia’s choices in sectors with long-term lock-in effects – most notably defence – reflect deep strategic alignment with Western partners. Defence capabilities remain fundamentally embedded in Western, particularly American, systems and support structures. The country’s entire air force depends on US platforms, training protocols, maintenance procedures, and intelligence-sharing architecture. This reliance extends beyond hardware to encompass operational doctrine, technical support and supply chains – creating irreversible path dependencies.
Maintaining Western military equipment also requires access to NATO-standard spare parts. For many systems, parts obsolescence has made Tunisia increasingly dependent on Western suppliers who control diminishing stockpiles. It was in recognition of this dynamic that, decades ago, then-President Habib Bourguiba declined generous Soviet offers to provide Tunisia with affordable military supply, opting instead to prioritize a long-term Western orientation over short-term acquisition advantages. His successor, President Beji Caid Essebsi reinforced this trajectory by pursuing ‘Major Non-NATO Strategic Ally’ status with the US.
This strategic choice has created cumulative lock-in effects that Saied’s government has maintained, not disrupted. Shortly after Saied’s election in 2019, and before the end of US President Donald Trump’s first term, Tunisia signed a ten-year military agreement with the US. Since then, as reflected in the Military Balance data, it has procured NATO-compatible equipment from Turkey, the US, and Canada. The only Chinese military equipment in its inventory are aging vessels acquired during the Cold War era. Tunisia’s limited defence budget makes wholesale replacement of these systems financially unfeasible, requiring not just new platforms but entirely new training infrastructure, maintenance facilities, technical documentation and munitions stocks.
Energy policy provides another window into Saied’s strategic priorities. In July 2023, his government signed a memorandum of understanding with the European Union on a ‘strategic and global partnership’ centred on green energy transition. Central to this is the ELMED interconnector: a 600-MW submarine power cable linking Tunisia and Italy, supported by $268.4 million in World Bank financing and additional EU backing. This infrastructure will physically integrate Tunisia’s electricity grid with Europe’s, creating a long-term interdependence that stands in stark contrast to the short-term opportunism of discounted Russian fuel purchases. While Tunisia has taken advantage of Russian petroleum products when economically beneficial, it has simultaneously deepened structural energy ties with Europe that will shape its development trajectory for decades.
Chinese investments in Tunisia follow a fundamentally different model. Most projects involve direct investment and technology transfer and typically follow a ‘build, operate, transfer’ approach that minimizes obligations. These initiatives are commercially valuable but lack the systemic integration and strategic depth that the European energy framework represents.
In the ICT sector, Tunisia demonstrates calculated balancing rather than wholesale reorientation. While Chinese consumer products remain popular due to affordability, major strategic ICT investments continue to favour Western technologies and standards. The sole exception is the PEACE Cable system – a 12,000km submarine telecommunications cable connecting Asia, Africa, and Europe through the Mediterranean – initiated before Saied’s presidency by European actors, and offset by the European-supplied Medusa Submarine Cable System. For critical digital infrastructure developed under Saied’s presidency – including 5G deployment and government cloud infrastructure – Tunisia continues to rely on US and European suppliers. No significant technology project has been implemented solely with Chinese components.
Unlike military systems or proprietary Western software ecosystems that create permanent lock-in effects, modern ICT systems developed during Saied’s tenure follow open standards that would allow Tunisia to replace Chinese components without fundamental disruption – further evidence that cost efficiency, not strategic reorientation, drives these decisions.
Tunisia’s enduring Western orientation stems from several interconnected structural factors. Elites and institutions maintain a deeper familiarity with Western markets, norms, and business practices compared to non-Arab Eastern alternatives, creating a cultural-institutional path dependency. This is reinforced by post-colonial migration patterns that established dense human and supply chain networks with Europe. Furthermore, core elite business networks predominantly engage with European capital, creating vested interests in maintaining Western economic ties. Domestic standards for infrastructure and public health also align with Western benchmarks, creating additional technical barriers to wholesale reorientation.
The evidence demonstrates a significant discrepancy between Saied’s rhetoric and Tunisia’s foreign policy reality. While opportunistic engagement with Eastern powers may provide short-term economic benefits and satisfy certain domestic constituencies, the foundation of Tunisia’s strategic position – military capabilities, energy infrastructure, financial relationships, and institutional frameworks – remains strongly dependent on Western actors.
Rhetoric without recalibration: what’s at stake for Tunisia?
There are growing concerns that Tunisia’s Western dependence is no longer the asset it once was and, moreover, that the lack of broader strategic engagement is a missed opportunity. Because of this dependence, Tunisia’s strategic alignment with Western powers carries significant costs in an evolving multipolar world. The Trump administration’s transactional foreign policy and growing right-wing scepticism towards international cooperation have transformed this dependence from an asset into a potential liability. As international norms erode, Western partners may extract greater concessions for diminishing returns – on matters ranging from material resources to foreign policy stances to intelligence sharing to territorial access. This dependence means security cooperation occurs primarily when it serves Western interests and not when Tunisia needs protection, as evidenced by Bourguiba being forced to accept Reagan’s minimal response after Israel bombed a civilian neighbourhood in Tunis in 1982 (targeting PLO offices), a clear violation of Tunisian sovereignty that went largely unaddressed, despite a UN Security Council condemnation due to Tunisia’s reliance on American support. This means that Tunisians bear the financial burden of maintaining expensive interoperable Western military systems while facing securitization along racialized lines domestically and abroad, with their government unable to protect diaspora communities in Western countries.
Domestically, failing to recalibrate foreign policy in line with a shifting global order puts state policy out of step with the interests of key elites – both those with democratic preferences and those who initially supported Saied’s autogolpe – while reinforcing popular perceptions of coastal elites as beholden to Western interests. This perception weakens Tunisia’s standing in both Arab and African communities, where it is still commonly viewed as overly aligned with the West – undermining opportunities for South-South cooperation that could diversify its partnerships and reduce strategic vulnerabilities. The absence of credible alternatives to the traditional ties deprives Tunisia of leverage, limiting its capacity to negotiate with Western partners on more equal terms. This dependence restricts strategic flexibility just as global power dynamics are shifting, A more effective Tunisian policy would consciously avoid placing all eggs in one basket, requiring strategic rather than merely cost-driven diversification to navigate an increasingly uncertain geopolitical environment.
