James Durso
This is President Trump’s first meeting with all the leaders, though he did meet the presidents of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan at the United Nations General Assembly session in September. Uzbekistan’s leadership under President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has played a pivotal role in deepening regional cooperation — it borders the other four republics and Afghanistan — while maintaining constructive relations with all the U.S., China and Russia.
Now, with his recent ASEAN meeting in the rearview mirror, Trump will arrive in a good mood, reinforced by some earlier economic diplomacy with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to grease the wheels: the sales of Boeing 787 Dreamliners and Wabtec Corporation locomotives. The president will likely advocate for more contracts with U.S. companies, especially access to critical minerals, but he has some competition from China.
The Belt and Road Initiative is the primary way for China to connect with Central Asia. When outbound investment dipped in 2020-2022, we were told by the experts it was failing to achieve its goals and that China’s officials had wasted a trillion dollars. We appear to have been misinformed.
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