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.
Tajikistan is valued primarily for its long border with Afghanistan. Washington’s engagement focuses on border security, counterterrorism, and narcotics control. The U.S. sees Dushanbe as a partner in managing regional spillovers from Afghanistan rather than as an economic hub. Although Tajikistan recorded one of the region’s fastest growth rates in 2024 – around 8.4 percent – it remains a low-income economy with a per-capita GDP near $1,300.
Kyrgyzstan, meanwhile, has historically been viewed as one of the more pluralistic states in the region, though recent restrictions on civil society have complicated this image. The U.S. approach combines cautious support for governance reforms with practical cooperation on export-control enforcement, an area where Washington is tightening oversight to prevent re-exports of sanctioned goods to Russia.
Turkmenistan, despite its vast natural-gas reserves and access to the Caspian Sea, remains politically closed and economically insular. American engagement is therefore limited, focused mostly on incremental steps to improve east–west energy and transport connectivity. Washington would like to see Turkmenistan play a more active role in regional infrastructure, but major breakthroughs remain unlikely.
Uzbekistan sits in the middle of the U.S. calculus, both geographically and strategically. It has the region’s largest population and a diversified economy, offering a manufacturing and logistics base that could serve U.S. and allied investors seeking to relocate parts of their supply chains out of China. The U.S. aims to encourage continued economic liberalization and customs modernization while deepening cooperation on export controls and transit infrastructure. Uzbekistan’s economy – about $115 billion and growing at nearly 6 percent annually – has become an important regional player, though its per-capita income of just over $3,000 highlights how far it remains from Kazakhstan’s level of development.
Kazakhstan, meanwhile, stands out as the most significant Central Asian state for the United States right now. On nearly every metric Washington cares about, including critical minerals, energy security, new and alternative trade corridors, as well as investable scale, Kazakhstan is the indispensable partner. It is the region’s largest economy, accounting for more than 60% of Central Asia’s GDP and three-quarters of U.S. trade with the region ($4.2 billion). Kazakhstan’s trade turnover reached about $141 billion in 2024 – more than double Uzbekistan’s and several times higher than that of its smaller neighbors. The country attracts around 80% of all investment flowing into Central Asia and has become the region’s financial and logistics anchor.
For Washington, Kazakhstan can provide several advantages. It is one of the world’s top producers of uranium, a significant exporter of copper and oil, and a source of rare-earth and battery minerals that underpin the energy transition. It is also central to the Trans-Caspian or “Middle Corridor,” the emerging trade route that bypasses Russia by linking Central Asia to Europe through the Caspian Sea and the South Caucasus. Supporting this route aligns with U.S. goals of strengthening resilient, alternative supply lines for both energy and materials.
The U.S. approach toward Kazakhstan is therefore focused on concrete, long-term cooperation: developing critical-minerals processing capacity, rather than just extraction, advancing logistics and transport links along the Trans-Caspian route, maintaining sanctions compliance discipline, and building digital and clean-energy partnerships. In practice, Washington treats Kazakhstan as first among equals in Central Asia on economic deliverables while continuing to engage the broader region through multilateral programs.
Several U.S. corporations are already embedded in Kazakhstan’s economy. PepsiCo is investing $320 million in a new snack plant in the Almaty region, while Wabtec signed a $4 billion deal to produce next-generation locomotives in Astana. GE Healthcare is localizing medical-equipment production, and Microsoft has opened a regional office overseeing Central Asia and beyond. These projects indicate that the U.S.–Kazakh economic ties are expanding from just oil and gas toward manufacturing, technology, and healthcare.
Ultimately, Washington’s agenda at the C5+1 summit is threefold: to secure diversified economic partnerships, to strengthen strategic connectivity, and to reinforce political ties in a region currently dominated by Russia and China. This means practical agreements on minerals, transport corridors, and export-control cooperation, framed by discussions of governance and sovereignty.
Central Asia will remain on the U.S. radar for the foreseeable future. In a geopolitical environment increasingly defined by U.S.–Russia–China rivalry, the region represents both a buffer and an opportunity – a place where Washington can pursue pragmatic cooperation without overextension. Among the five states, Kazakhstan offers the scale to translate these ambitions into tangible outcomes, but the broader message of the summit is that the U.S. is interested in expanding its presence in Central Asia.
Michael Rossi is a Lecturer in Political Science at Rutgers University of New Jersey, United States, and a Visiting Professor at Webster University.
