Call for U.S.-Russia Bering Strait Tunnel Resonates in the Americas

The idea of United States-Russia collaboration on the Bering Strait Tunnel intercontinental transport corridor is getting increased attention, in particular since Schiller Institute leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche issued a call for this Aug. 11, as part of a peace initiative. It is coherent with the congenial spirit expressed at the Aug. 15 summit in Alaska between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Schiller Institute proposal is headlined, “Zepp-LaRouche Calls on Presidents Trump, Putin, and Xi: The Bering Strait Tunnel Project Is the Perfect War-Avoidance Policy.”

United States. Prof. Peter Kuznick, Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University in Washington, D.C., spoke about the tunnel concept in an Aug. 10 interview with TASS. “What I would like to see is a follow-up meeting between Trump, Putin, and [Chinese President] Xi Jinping at the World War II commemoration [September 3] in China. It would be even better if [Indian Prime Minister Narendra] Modi and [Brazilian President Luiz Inácio] Lula [da Silva] also join.” He urged cooperation between Russia, the United States, and perhaps other nations, on joint development projects in the Arctic, “and perhaps a Bering Strait Tunnel connecting Russia and the U.S. with high-speed rails.” This sort of collaboration could “put the world back on the path toward peace….”

On Aug. 13, an eight-person team, coordinated by The LaRouche Organization (TLO), distributed a special packet to the offices of all 435 members of the House of Representatives and the 100 members of the Senate. The packet featured the Zepp-LaRouche proposal, background EIR articles on the Bering Strait project, and also the full, 12-page TLO dossier issued July 2025, “Worse than Treason: The Actual Motive Behind Russiagate.”

Mexico. On Aug. 12, the text of the Zepp-LaRouche tunnel proposal was published on the website Voces del Periodistas, which is followed by nationalist journalists, many from the alternative media. It is also included at the end of an August 10 opinion column in Sonora’s Dossier Politico by Hugo Lopez Ochoa titled, “New Opportunity for Peace Emerges; Zepp-LaRouche Calls for Tripartite Meeting: Trump, Putin, Xi Jinping.”

Brazil. Monitor Mercantil, the influential business site, carried an article Aug. 12 by editor Marcos de Oliveira, asking the same question about the Aug. 15 Alaska summit posed by Zepp-LaRouche: “What can be done to achieve lasting peace, beyond simply reaching an agreement to end conflicts?” The article reported on the Bering Strait tunnel collaboration concept, with extensive quotes from her text. The Bering Strait tunnel would have transformative effects in linking the American Hemisphere to Eurasia.

The weekly Brazilian online news round-up show, “The Thread of History,” hosted Aug. 13 by Luiz Erthal of Toda Palavra (Every Word), opened with the theme, “War or Peace: Expectations for the Meeting between Putin and Trump in Alaska.” This included a five-minute report from organizer Tim Rush of the Schiller Institute and The LaRouche Organization (TLO), recorded earlier that day live on Capitol Hill, during the distribution of the Bering Strait and leaders’ summit proposals. The Toda Palavra news hour is rebroadcast on cable network TV Comunitária Brasília, with streaming on many channels.

Bering Strait Tunnel Concept Gets Attention in Europe

Claudio Celani, EIR co-editor of the EIR Alert Service in Germany, and Prof. Enzo Siviero, Rector of eCampus (online university) in Italy, who is known as the Italian “bridge builder,” issued a call Aug. 9 to Presidents Putin and Trump to take inspiration from Italy’s decision to build the Messina Bridge, which will connect the mainland to Sicily, and to launch construction of the Bering Strait Tunnel. The text refers to Lyndon LaRouche’s concept of the “World Land-Bridge,” saying, “The Messina Bridge is bringing Europe closer to Africa, and the two continents will be finally part of the World Land-Bridge when the next project, the connection between Sicily and Tunisia called TUNeIT, is built. With these great infrastructure projects and the Bering Strait Tunnel, mankind nurtures the dream of connecting all continents in a future based on cooperation without wars.” Siviero had called for “visionary engineering” in a June 29 video interview.

Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, the American analyst based in Brussels, said in his Aug. 8 interview with RT, that joint economic projects should be a key topic between Trump and Putin on Aug. 15. In particular, Doctorow pointed out, “Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the [Russian] Direct Investment Fund, has been an integral part of all discussions. And everyone knows that he is a backer of the old idea of a tunnel-bridge connecting Russia and the United States over the Bering Strait.”

Dmitriev posted on Aug. 9 on X the view that the U.S. and Russia should “partner on the environment, infrastructure, and energy in the Arctic and beyond,” with a picture of railroad tracks extending toward Alaska’s high mountains. To a comment that stated, “Time for the Bering Strait Tunnel,” posted on X by the Schiller Institute’s Daniel Burke, Dmitriev replied, “Possibly yes.”

Russian Legislator Talks of Arctic Cooperation, Bering Strait Connection

Sergei Gavrilov, a member of the Russian State Duma, and the head of its Committee on Property, Land, and Property Relations, identified in the Aug. 11 RIA Novosti topics of infrastructure cooperation that are in order for discussion between Presidents Trump and Putin.

“In this regard,” said Gavrilov, “the agenda [for the Aug. 15. summit] may also include more ambitious projects that previously existed only at the conceptual level. Among them are ideas for building a transport crossing the Bering Strait, which were worked out in various versions during the Soviet era, including a dam, bridge or tunnel.”

Gavrilov, a member of the National Financial Council of the Bank of Russia, asserts, as reported by RIA Novosti, “A flagship infrastructure transition between Russia and the United States could become a symbol of such interaction, capable of becoming an element of a broader system of international cooperation in the Arctic and Pacific areas, taking into account the interests of not only the two countries, but also the state of the Asia-Pacific Region.”

Gavrilov suggests that frozen Russian assets in the U.S. could theoretically be used to co-finance infrastructure projects, stimulating economic ties and attracting private capital.

Chinese Rail Engineer’s Vision for Transcontinental Connectivity via Bering Strait

In a visionary 2014 interview, Chinese rail engineer Wang Mengshu laid out plans for a high-speed railway connecting China to the United States via Russia and Canada, crossing the Bering Strait through a 200-kilometer tunnel. This ambitious, 13,000-kilometer (8,000-mile) line, designed to allow travel at 350 km/h, could enable passengers to reach the U.S. from China in less than two days, offering scenic views across multiple countries. The project, part of China’s “going global” rail strategy, would involve funding and technology exchanges among participants. Wang told the Beijing Times that the tunnel project involves “technology used in the high-speed rail tunnel from Fujian to Taiwan, and the necessary technology is already in place.”

Wang Mengshu (1938-2018), an Academician of the China Academy of Engineering, was a leader in China’s high-speed rail development, tunnels in particular. In an interview with the New York Times later in 2014, Wang stressed that the Bering Strait crossing “is a wish and a dream of not only China’s railway experts but also railway engineers in Russia, Canada and the U.S. whom I have spoken to.”

To the New York Times’ asking whether this grand idea would ever come to pass, Wang answered, “That depends entirely on politics, because we have the technology. It depends on whether governments of the four countries can work together, make this dream come true and leave this amazing legacy for our children…. Some governments like to spend their resources on fighting wars. I think building a railway is far more meaningful than fighting wars.”

Alaska Has Long Backed the Bering Strait Tunnel to Eurasia

Former Lieutenant Governor of Alaska Mead Treadwell told TASS Aug. 13, “If this summit can begin a new era of peace, it will be a sigh of relief for the world and, perhaps, a renewal of constructive engagement among people of the Arctic.” Though he did not single out the Bering Strait tunnel corridor by name in this interview, he is a longtime proponent, speaking out for the project at a 2024 conference, sponsored by the Washington Times. Treadwell served as lieutenant governor from 2010-2014, and chaired the U.S. Arctic Research Commission in 2006-2010.

Former Governor of Alaska Walter Hickel (1919-2010) was a world spokesman for the Bering Strait Tunnel to link Eurasia and the Americas, calling it a priority “world mega-project.” In April 2007 he spoke on the topic at a conference organized by the Russian Academy of Sciences Council for the Study of Productive Forces, where also a paper by Lyndon LaRouche was presented, “The World’s Political Map Changes: Mendeleyev Would Have Agreed.” (See article in this issue.)

At the October 2007 Arctic Energy Summit in Anchorage, attended by a large Russian delegation, Hickel insisted, “That tunnel will happen.”