Central Asian leaders gathered at the SCO summit in Tianjin, with China and Russia giving them top-tier attention.- The five Central Asian Republics balance ties with China and Russia, and use SCO and BRICS to deepen trade and security links.
- U.S. influence is small in trade but has openings.
The leaders of the five Central Asia republics attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Plus meeting in Tianjin, China, which concluded on 1 September. Twenty-four countries and the United Nations, and other multilateral organizations were represented. (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are founders of SCO; Turkmenistan, as a permanently neutral countr,y attended as a guest.)
The 80th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) opens on 9 September, and leaders of the republics may have an opportunity to meet U.S. President Donald Trump. (During his first term, Trump met the presidents of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.)
The Trump administration hasn’t articulated a Central Asia strategy so all we have to go on is the Biden administration strategy that was premised on the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, though it declared “Central Asia is a geostrategic region important to United States national security interests, regardless of the level of United States involvement in Afghanistan.”
Well, there’s no “level of United States involvement in Afghanistan” now, so what can the republics expect if the leaders meet Trump?
Trump is all about leverage, and that works if the target is a major trade partner of the U.S., but of the five republics, Kazakhstan leads in U.S. trade at #54, and Tajikistan is last at #208 – behind “West Bank Administered by Israel” at #182.”
American motion picture director Woody Allen said, “Eighty percent of success is showing up” and it’s no different for politicians.
No U.S. president has visited Central Asia, but Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping do. Putin has made 76 visits, and Xi has made 15 visits.
President Joe Biden met the presidents of the republics at the 2023 UNGA meeting, but it was just a one-hour photo op. (Trump may be encouraged to spend some quality time with the Republicans’ leaders just so he can tweet he did better than Biden.)
Putin held more than 50 meetings (online and in-person) with the republics’ leaders in 2022.
In 2023, China hosted the leaders of the republics at the two-day China-Central Asia Summit in Xi’an, and in 2024 Xi visited Astana, Kazakhstan, for the 24th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO. In June 2025, Xi again traveled to Astana for the second China–Central Asia Summit, and pledged China’s “eternal friendship” with the region
At the recent SCO meeting, Xi met one-on-one with all the leaders of the republics, and Putin met the leaders of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In the SCO meeting official picture, the five republics’ presidents share the front row, a clear signal of China’s intent.
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan spoke to Trump shortly after the SCO meeting so he may be the region’s point man as the leaders prepare for UNGA. Mirziyoyev also invited Trump to visit Uzbekistan in the near future.
The republics are finally free of the Russian Empire (1721-1917), Soviet Empire (1917-1991), and the American empire (2001-2021) and will avoid any arrangement that limits their sovereignty.
The republics have language and business ties with Russia, have received significant investment from China, see Iran as a beckoning market and the host of needed transport routes, and are investing in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The republics understand they are all “neighbors forever” and don’t want to be the platform for Western revenge attacks on Iran or Afghanistan, or heavy-handed attempts to block Russia or China – at their expense.
The republics see SCO (and BRICS, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are Partner Countries) as ways to integrate into regional trade networks, increase opportunities for political cooperation, and cushion themselves from instability, an American specialty.
Trump said BRICS was formed “for a bad purpose” and threatened tariffs if its members moved to de-dollarize. This is because he sees groups like SCO and BRICS as a threat to American unilateralism, though SCO and BRICS may be more for avoiding America than undermining America.
Central Asian citizens will form positive opinions about U.S. intentions if their leaders meet the American president. Xi and Putin are busy guys, they may think, and they take the time to show respect to the republics’ leaders, so why not Trump? And local leaders can leverage the absence of top-level attention by Washington to draw closer to Russia and China (and SCO and BRICS), which will draw the attention of Washington, but by then it may be too late.
The republics may prefer to have to deal with three big powers, the U.S., Russia, and China, so if one of the players weaken,s they can still balance between two, than be trapped in a bilateral relationship with a single stronger player.
The U.S. does little trade with Central Asia, but the region is key to East-West trade between Europe and China. That said, U.S. investment in the region is increasing but economic relations are hobbled by the Cold War-era Jackson-Vanik Amendment. American politicians have been saying for years that they will do something about Jackson-Vanik, but have failed to deliver. Washington is, however, supporting Uzbekistan’s accession to the World Trade Organization. (Kazakhstan joined the WTO in 2015, with U.S. backing.)
There are opportunities to link Washington’s crusading impulses to crises in Central Asia: the drying up of the Aral Sea and methane emissions in Turkmenistan.
The desertification of the Aral Sea has had profound economic effects on the region: the collapse of the fishing industry and resulting widespread unemployment; agricultural decline and increased salinization of the soil; adverse health effects, including increased infant mortality, often caused by diarrheal disease, growth retardation and anemia in children, respiratory disease, and elevated occurrences of cancers.
The environmental and economic hardships have forced people to migrate in search of better living conditions, leading to depopulation of the region, further economic decline, and pressure for jobs and housing in urban centers. The republics have responded by retiring competition over scarce water resources and building trust and cooperation, modernizing antiquated irrigation systems, and making a priority of “water diplomacy.”
Turkmenistan is a significant emitter of methane, and leaks from the gas fields are substantial: over 2.9 million tons of methane, more than the United Kingdom’s annual carbon emissions. (Turkmenistan’s population is less than 6.5 million, while the UK’s is about 67 million.)
Washington can say, “Do as I do, not as I say,” if it works with Ashgabat to reduce methane emissions while it tackles America’s emissions that may be “three times higher on average than the level predicted by official government estimates.”
Trump likes high-visibility, big-dollar deals ,but he can help secure American influence in Central Asia by directing his officials to partner with the republics, the UN Multi-Partner Human Security Trust Fund for the Aral Sea Region, the Global Methane Pledge, and UN Water to flow the money, technology, and political support to help Central Asia repair the effects of these catastrophes.
By James Durso
