Nowhere is this more evident than the two joint statements – and five bilateral fact sheets – released on November 7 following the whirlwind week for Central Asia in Washington.

A Narrowed C5+1

The two joint statements focused on intentions in the fields of economic cooperation and cultural heritage.

This contrasts sharply with the C5+1 Leaders’ Joint Statement – the New York Declaration – produced after the first C5+1 leaders meeting, hosted by then-U.S. President Joe Biden in 2023. That statement addressed the full-spectrum of cooperation, with headings on “resilience through partnership, “expanded security cooperation,” a “C5+1 economic and energy corridor,” “enhancing energy security and combating the effects of climate change,” “partnership through people,” and moving “towards a new atmosphere of partnership” followed by full paragraphs, rather than bullet points.

For example, the 2023 declaration stated a commitment to:

…advance efforts to create a more favorable business environment for U.S. private sector trade and investment in Central Asia, including by working toward permanent normal trade relations.  We intend to take significant steps to enhance alternative trade routes, facilitate new connections among U.S. and Central Asian businesses, and create a regional network of young professionals receiving English language and professional development training. The U.S. Department of State and the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) – an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – will work to establish a private-sector business platform [editor’s note: the B5+1 to complement the C5+1 diplomatic platform and strengthen U.S.-Central Asia economic ties.

The 2025 joint statement of intent, meanwhile, included points on improving the ease of doing business through implementing a variety of regulatory, legal, and market reforms (points 1-8), developing the potential of the Trans-Caspian Trade Route, i.e. the Middle Corridor (point 21), enhancing cooperation between the U.S. and Central Asia in a variety of fields, including civil nuclear cooperation (point 11), hydropower, tourism, IT, e-commerce, and agriculture (point 13) and a focus on the B5+1 (point 9). The 2025 statement also builds on the C5+1 Critical Minerals Dialogue (point 12), which the 2023 declaration established.

But beside this narrow avenue of continuity sits the glaring absence of everything else, most notably security cooperation and climate change, including a range of related issues from energy and water security to Afghanistan.

5 C1+1s

The additional bilateral fact sheets further illuminate the economic and commercial focus of Central Asia-U.S. relations under the Trump administration, and reading them beside each other makes clear where Washington finds more fertile ground: Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The bilateral fact sheets are also heavily weighted in favor of what the United States is getting out of Central Asia, highlighting deals made last week (or earlier) and why these matter for the U.S.

The Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan fact sheets are titled “A New Era in U.S.-Kazakhstan Relations” and “Elevating U.S.-Uzbekistan Relations,” respectively. They include subheadings like “wins for U.S. business and workers” and “strengthening U.S. manufacturing and exports.” The Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan fact sheets – titled “The United States Strengthens Commercial Ties with the Kyrgyz Republic” and “The United States Strengthens Ties with Tajikistan” – also each feature subheadings proclaiming “wins for American workers and businesses.”

Each of the fact sheets, released by the U.S. State Department, are mostly comprised of deals announced by the U.S. Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration (ITA) last week.

By far the shortest of the fact sheets is the one regarding Turkmenistan, which came away from Washington last week with no deals. There’s no mention of progress or discussion of the current partial travel ban, which has prevented most Turkmen students and tourists from visiting the United States since June. That may be one reason the fact sheet only refers to areas that Turkmenistan intends to consider.

Although there is the promise of a “new era in U.S.-Turkmen relations,” it is one in which Turkmenistan “will consider preferential treatment and exemptions in the critical minerals sector for American companies” and, following the delimitation of the Caspian seabed, “consider the possibility of implementing the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline Project.” Turkmenistan furthermore “intends to consider participating in the development of new opportunities for trade and transportation in the Central Asia-Caucasus region arising from the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), as well as promoting peace-making in the region.”

Eschewing Challenges to Make Deals

The word “challenges” appears six times in the 2023 New York Declaration, in reference to a shared vision for “sustained cooperation” to address the Central Asian region’s “complex challenges and emerging threats,” and the C5+1’s goal of “seeking regional solutions to global challenges.” These challenges are iterated in terms of regional security challenges as well as global challenges related to climate change and critical minerals.

There are no challenges mentioned in the 2025 joint statements of intent or the bilateral fact sheets, just deals that appear to be heavily weighted in the United States’ favor.

Diplomats who worked within the C5+1 framework, and academics who have studied it, often characterized its true achievement as enabling the United States to bring up issues that were bilaterally sensitive between regional countries, providing a platform to address challenging topics, like shared water resources and borders, without recrimination.

The Trump administration’s approach is much more narrowly focused on economic and commercial matters, with achievements defined by dollar amounts. If once U.S. policy toward Central Asia hinged on Afghanistan, it now turns on issues like critical minerals, purchases of U.S. products, and investments.