How America Could Advance Beyond Energy In Eurasia

Every year, the C5+1 forum convenes the five Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) alongside the United States. The forthcoming 2025 meeting between Donald Trump and the C5 presidents, scheduled for November 6, 2025, in Washington, D.C., will mark the 10^th anniversary of the forum. This is the first time it will take place at the White House, further elevating the summit’s importance. The geopolitical rationale for these talks is clear. Russia, China, Iran, and Afghanistan border these five states, making the region of great importance to American national and economic security, and together the C5 are home to 84 million people and troves of natural resources, including rare earths, uranium, gold, oil, gas, and more.

The combination of geopolitical centrality, security challenges, and high levels of local human capital presents a slew of opportunities and a challenging set of problems for the C5+1 to navigate. For several years, discussions centered on how to get C5 commodities onto the open market, how to deal with Russian assertiveness, how to mitigate encroaching Chinese influence, how to invest profitably, and how to promote local regional integration and economic diversification to fend off powerful neighbors. Most engagement was dominated by Western interests in hydrocarbons and counterterrorism and concerns about Chinese dominance over Turkmenistan’s vast gas reserves. While these initiatives were successful, they were limited in scope.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and U.S.-China economic friction created an atmosphere of crisis and urgency. Now the agenda has shifted from triage to durable strategic cooperation in a range of economic sectors. A combination of engagement with regional actors, especially Uzbekistan, and changes in the region is diversifying American interest and strengthening connections.

America’s Next Eurasian Hub?

Shavkat Mirziyoyev became president of Uzbekistan after the death of his predecessor in 2016. Since gaining its independence from the USSR, Uzbekistan had been a highly centralized and relatively isolated state, with an economy dominated by cotton cultivation and mining managed by a series of inefficient state-owned enterprises with Soviet-era lineages. Mirziyoyev sought to change all of that, working for closer regional integration, and seeking to open the Uzbekistan economy—and the region—to trade and investment to create a new Eurasian hub.

The transformation over the course of the last decade is an example of comprehensive and successful economic reform, with a relatively closed economy opening up at breakneck speed. Uzbekistan is working on aligning its capital markets architecture with Western norms, and has established a National Investment Fund jointly with Franklin Templeton, which is working on the privatization of a number of state-owned assets. Privatizing inefficient state enterprises has already yielded results, as foreign investors get increasingly involved. NASDAQ is exploring avenues to modernize the Uzbek Stock Exchange, while Uzbek banks and state-owned enterprises have been successfully placed on international stock markets with the help of Citigroup.

The results are visible. Boeing just inked an $8.5 billion deal with Uzbekistan Airways for up to 22 of its wide-body 787 aircraft. Air Products is implementing strategic projects in Uzbekistan in industrial chemistry and gases, including gas-to-liquid processing plant. Over 300 U.S. companies are involved in Uzbekistan, spurred on partly by promises of further concessions in Uzbekistan’s new special economic zones and by the possibilities unlocked by the over $105 billion in bilateral economic deals across a range of sectors, including critical minerals, announced by Mirziyoyev in September 2025. Citi, Honeywell, and Franklin Templeton all have offices slated to open in Uzbekistan.

The China Dimension

Despite America’s recent successes in Uzbekistan inside and beyond the energy sector, it is not yet “mission accomplished” for American policy in the region. Chinese investment still dwarfs American investment threefold, and trade is an order of magnitude higher. Uzbekistan may have over 300 American companies active, but according to China’s State Council, over 3,400 Chinese companies are present in the country. While Washington has often assigned a low foreign policy priority to Central Asia in the past, Beijing views it as a cornerstone of its own, launching the Belt and Road Initiative twice in neighboring Kazakhstan.

China’s engagement with Central Asia spans a wide range. The China- Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway and facilitation of Chinese access to Turkmenistan’s vast natural gas reserves, partially at the expense of Europe, have raised eyebrows in Washington.

The January 2024 Sino-Uzbek proclamation of an “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership” may have been made with Russian great power agenda and the need to balance between Moscow and Beijing in mind. Washington countered by announcing an Enhanced Strategic Partnership Dialogue with Tashkent in November 2024. Uzbekistan’s engagement with Russia and China via the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is accepted as a consequence of undesirable geography but is still greeted unenthusiastically in the West.

Still, China’s influence in the region should not be seen as hegemonic. As the involvement of Chinese firms and Chinese nationals in Uzbekistan’s economy has increased, recent reports indicate that anxiety about Chinese involvement is on the rise among certain sectors of the population. When the shortcomings of the first Belt and Road Initiative compelled China to unveil Belt and Road 2.0 again in neighboring Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan calibrated appropriately and scaled back cooperation. Uzbekistan is not able to pick its neighbors, but has chosen how to engage with them, walking a tightrope between protecting its sovereignty and engaging with massive nearby powers.

Towards A New Eurasian Policy

Since Shavkat Mirziyoyev became president, Uzbekistan has been moving succinctly to balance engagement with China and Russia by seeking more Western investment. Tashkent will begin offering visa-free entry for American tourists who visit the architectural treasures of Bukhara and Samarkand starting in January 2026. America’s quest for scalable markets with relatively high levels of human capital, large populations capable of sustaining localized consumption, and acting as regional hubs, means that Uzbek-American cooperation should move forward as Mirziyoyev’s reforms remove the roadblocks. The time has come for both sides to turn this emerging economic relationship into sustainable, long-term cooperation with mutually beneficial geopolitical dividends. The C5 and the U.S. need to appoint senior officials to supervise execution of agreements and have implementation schedules and quarterly reviews locked in place.

After the withdrawal from Afghanistan, America has had a light footprint in Central Asia. No sitting president has ever visited the region; and the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which prevents the U.S. from establishing permanent normal trade relations with the Central Asian states, still remains on the books – a relic of the past, as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted.

If the U.S. comprehensively engages and enhances economic and strategic ties with Uzbekistan, it can shore up an important regional relationship with an and secure an increasingly vital partner.

If Washington remains focused, it will unlock the economic potential of an emerging mining, technology, and manufacturing hub, and Uzbekistan’s position as a natural center of gravity for regional integration will then synchronize with the United States. A presidential visit to the region is long overdue to ensure that an integrated Central Asia that can stand on its own and provide for local prosperity. The region’s integration into international markets can only be achieved by deepening cooperation in follow-up to the 10^th C5+1 forum.