Signal No US president has visited any Central Asian state in 35 years

Summary

The report observes that US foreign policy toward Eurasian states carries relatively little weight compared with other key regions. As an illustration, over the past 35 years no US president has visited any of the five Central Asian countries, and the modest scale of economic cooperation and trade tells the same story. The only exception was the Afghanistan war, when military and security reasons briefly raised US interest in the region. Eurasian states welcome Western support for their sovereignty and territorial integrity and the sharing of knowledge, but they also ask the United States and Europe to respect their own political and economic paths. They hope the West will keep paying attention to the region's geopolitical and geoeconomic importance despite the withdrawal from Afghanistan, not least on terrorism, drug trafficking and extremism.