As the world slides deeper into multi-polarity, Central Asia – long on the periphery of US foreign policy – is becoming a pivotal arena of geopolitical competition.
Landlocked, resource-rich, and geopolitically sandwiched between Russia, China, Iran and South Asia, the region is a crossroads for energy flows, rare earth exports and emerging trade corridors.
Amid renewed engagement by China, Russia, Turkey, and the European Union, President Donald Trump appears determined to reposition Washington’s stake in this increasingly crowded arena. His second term marks a notable shift in US posture: a transactional push for influence grounded in resource diplomacy and selective security cooperation.
A striking example of Trump’s transactional infrastructure diplomacy is emerging in Armenia, where construction has just begun on the so-called “Trump Bridge,” a $1.9 billion project linking the country’s industrial northeast to its Caspian port facilities.
Slated for completion by late 2028, the bridge is being heralded by Washington and by Armenian officials as a transformative boost to regional connectivity – particularly for trade corridors that bypass Russian and Iranian routes. Strategically, it positions Armenia as a critical link in a north-south transport chain competing directly with China’s Belt and Road rail networks and Russia’s North–South Transport Corridor.
Yet the project has already sparked political debate at home and abroad. Critics argue that the deal negotiated directly between Trump’s envoys and Armenia’s presidential office, skirts transparency standards and could deepen the country’s exposure to geopolitical crosswinds.
For Trump’s Central Asia playbook, the bridge serves both as a high-visibility symbol of US re-engagement and a litmus test of whether big-ticket projects can deliver lasting influence in a crowded and contested region.
Central Asia: a geopolitical fulcrum
Bordering major powers and conflict zones, the five Central Asian republics – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – are strategically located and institutionally fragile. Persistent concerns about extremism, ethnic unrest, and governance deficits make the region a hotspot for internal instability, with broader consequences for neighboring powers.
According to the International Crisis Group, these countries collectively hold over 7% of the world’s proven natural gas reserves and significant deposits of uranium, lithium and rare earth elements. Kazakhstan alone accounts for 43% of global uranium production as of 2023.
Central Asia’s significance lies not only in its geography and resources, but also in its role as a balancing zone among major powers.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has disrupted traditional east-west routes, trade flows through Central Asia have surged. Kazakhstan’s trade with the EU increased by 61% in 2022, while Uzbekistan’s GDP grew by 5.6%, partly due to trade diversification. The region has become a conduit for trade between China and Russia, a hub for Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure, and a staging ground for military influence through Russia’s Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and episodic US re-engagements.
While lacking maritime access, Central Asia is increasingly central to global energy flows and resource diplomacy via its vast reserves of oil, gas, uranium and rare earths. Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan hold the most significant reserves, but their exports must transit neighboring countries. This makes regional diplomacy inseparable from economic prosperity.
Consequently, states like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan pursue a “multi-vector” foreign policy, engaging with all major powers to avoid overdependence and maximize autonomy. As Moscow seeks alternative trade corridors and China expands its Belt and Road footprint, the region has become an even more contested arena for great power competition.
China and Russia: growing footprints, diverging interests
China, the largest trading partner for four of the five Central Asian states, views the region as both a buffer zone and a corridor for outbound infrastructure. Its influence is most visible in the economic domain.
Through major Belt and Road projects including the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway and various cross-border pipelines, trade between China and Central Asia surpassed $70 billion in 2023 – a fivefold increase since 2013.
Yet, this growing dominance has also triggered nationalist backlash in countries like Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, where citizens raise concerns over land use, upstream water rights and Chinese labor practices.
China’s security engagement is framed through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as focused on terrorism, separatism, and extremism – especially with an eye toward stability in Xinjiang. However, China avoids direct military entanglements.
Russia, the traditional hegemony, remains the region’s main security provider via the CSTO and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), maintaining military bases in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. However, the war in Ukraine has strained Russia’s economic and military capacity. Its trade share is declining, and remittances from Central Asian laborers fell by over 30% in 2023. This has pushed Central Asian governments to seek alternative partners while treading carefully not to provoke Moscow.
The United States returns – with a new playbook
Under Trump’s renewed presidency, the US is pivoting away from multilateralism and counterterrorism toward transactional, resource-focused diplomacy. His strategy emphasizes three pillars: bilateral engagement, critical mineral access and infrastructure partnerships.
Talks are reportedly underway to re-establish access to Uzbekistan’s Navoi Air Base and secure transit rights through Kazakhstan’s Caspian ports – key logistical points during the US presence in Afghanistan.
Unlike the Biden administration’s emphasis on governance and democratic reform, Trump’s second-term approach is distinctly non-ideological. He has praised authoritarian-leaning leaders such as Uzbekistan’s Shavkat Mirziyoyev for maintaining “order and stability,” and is reportedly considering sanctions relief for Turkmenistan in exchange for energy concessions. These tactics recall Cold War-era realpolitik: favoring predictability, and access, over reform.
Resource diplomacy at the forefront
Central Asia’s critical minerals are pivotal to the US effort to decouple from Chinese supply chains. In 2018, Trump signed a $1 billion memorandum of understanding with Kazakhstan and Ukraine to develop alternative rare earth partnerships. That framework is now being revived.
US firms such as Energy Fuels Inc. are seeking joint ventures in uranium extraction, with discussions reportedly resuming with Kazakhstan’s Kazatomprom and Uzbekistan’s Navoi Mining & Metallurgy.
Kazakhstan holds an estimated 20 million metric tons of rare earth reserves, ranking third globally. Uzbekistan is expanding its lithium sector to meet battery demand. With China rapidly expanding its own extraction capacity, Washington is pushing alternatives – even if it means working with opaque or autocratic regimes.
Unlike China’s large-scale infrastructure model, Trump’s administration favors selective, bilateral deals tailored to the US economic priorities. These include investments in digital infrastructure, energy processing and corridors linking Central Asia with South Asia via Afghanistan – particularly from hydrocarbon-rich states like Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
Strategic risks and contradictions
Despite short-term gains, Trump’s approach presents long-term vulnerabilities:
- Erosion of the US soft power: Partnering with authoritarian regimes while tightening immigration enforcement undermines American credibility. Central Asian diaspora communities in the US, particularly from Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, report rising concerns over profiling and visa denials.
- Disengagement from multilateral platforms: Trump’s lack of interest in initiatives such as C5+1, the platform for the United States and the five Central Asian countries to address regional issues like economic development and security, leaves Washington without institutional ballast. This contrasts sharply with China’s SCO and Russia’s CSTO, both of which offer continuity despite internal frictions.
- Regional instability: Nationalist backlash against Chinese projects, religious radicalization in southern Kyrgyzstan and the Ferghana Valley and cross-border ethnic tensions all threaten regional stability. The US may lack the diplomatic bandwidth to respond.
- Immigration and perception gap: Restrictive immigration policies toward Muslim-majority countries run counter to efforts at bridge-building with Central Asian professionals, students, and entrepreneurs.
Strategic outlook
As competition for critical resources intensifies, Central Asia is emerging as a vital node in new global supply chains. But the region’s receptivity to the US influence will hinge not just on offers but on sustained presence and perceived reliability. The abrupt 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal remains a cautionary tale.
Trump’s approach – pragmatic, leader-driven, and results-oriented – may generate quick wins. But without institutional support and strategic consistency, those gains could prove ephemeral. Central Asian governments, wary of geopolitical volatility, are unlikely to grant lasting influence to an actor perceived as transactional and unreliable.
Pakistan’s new $1 billion loan deal with Japan illustrates how outside powers are recalibrating their engagement in the region. Unlike China’s high-profile Belt and Road projects, Tokyo is taking a steadier, lower-key approach that blends financial stabilization with selective infrastructure support. This creates an alternative model for states wary of overdependence on either Beijing or Washington – and highlights the crowded strategic marketplace Trump’s Central Asia policy must now navigate.
While Trump’s first term saw relative disengagement, his second administration is mounting a more assertive, albeit transactional, reentry. Rather than embedding the United States in multilateral frameworks, Trump’s current approach prioritizes deal-making over institution-building – a strategy that could leave Washington without durable channels of influence in a region increasingly central to global supply chains.
Driven by energy security and anti-China sentiment, the US is pursuing bilateral diplomacy and resource deals. Yet to move beyond short-term bidding, Washington must demonstrate staying power.
This is a timely moment to reassess the US positioning in Central Asia as new infrastructure, trade corridors, and resource deals reshape the region’s geopolitical balance. The challenge for Trump is not simply to return to Central Asia – but to remain relevant and reliable in a crowded and complex geopolitical landscape.
