Michael Rossi
On November 6, President Donald Trump met with the leaders of Central Asia in Washington for the U.S.–Central Asia (C5+1) summit, marking one of the most high-profile American engagement with the region in years. Once a peripheral concern for U.S. policymakers, Central Asia is moving up Washington’s foreign-policy agenda as a result of renewed great-power competition. Geography, energy, and connectivity have turned this landlocked region into a strategic crossroads between Russia, China, and the West.
For the United States, the summit is about identifying reliable partners for supply chains, critical minerals, and energy diversification, while ensuring that U.S. sanctions on Russia remain effective and that Beijing’s growing influence in Eurasia does not go unchallenged. Washington’s priorities include securing new trade corridors, tightening export controls, expanding energy and minerals cooperation, and reinforcing border and counterterrorism capabilities.While all five
Central Asian states are part of the summit, their importance to the U.S. differs. Collectively, Central Asia’s economies remain modest – Kazakhstan’s $288 billion economy is larger than those of Uzbekistan ($115 billion), Turkmenistan ($89 billion), Kyrgyzstan ($20 billion), and Tajikistan ($15 billion) combined. The region’s income gap is stark: Kazakhstan’s GDP per capita of roughly $14,000 is more than four times higher than Uzbekistan’s and ten times that of Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan. As such, the smaller economies – Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan – offer limited economic potential but serve specific geopolitical purposes.
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