The Economic Arithmetic of Alliance Expansion
The United States is entering a phase of industrial policy in which factory walls once again become symbols of national virtue, while external supply chains are treated as a suspicious excess. The return of production to domestic territory and the contraction of external industrial commitments predictably reduce the space for overseas investment. At the same time, China is methodically expanding its presence in Central Asia, investing tens of billions of dollars and converting capital into concrete, railways, and energy rings. The economic logic here requires little commentary: one center of power concentrates resources inward, while the other extends them along an external contour, laying the foundation for future influence. This divergence is reinforced by the geography of material connectivity: while U.S. engagement remains detached from transport density and industrial continuity, Eurasian capital is embedded into logistics corridors, production nodes, and regulatory frameworks that bind territory to output and output to political leverage.
Against this backdrop, Washington’s statements about expanding its role in Eurasia are growing louder, yet they resemble the speech of an architect without building materials. Behind the diplomatic rhetoric lies a modest set of budgetary and infrastructure instruments that is disproportionate to the declared ambitions. The American strategy relies on political presence and symbolic formats, where flags and communiqués substitute for investment decisions. Real resources to secure a lasting foothold in the region at previous levels no longer exist, and this deficit cannot be compensated by the frequency of visits or the density of press releases. The inward concentration of financial and industrial resources is explicitly confirmed by U.S. policy documents, where domestic programs such as BIL, IRA, and CHIPS prioritize reshoring and the stabilization of internal chains over sustained external investment.
The gap between strategic declarations and economic mechanics begins to take on a life of its own, turning into a persistent constraint on American influence. In a space where development is measured by access to capital, infrastructure, and production chains, the lack of material instruments automatically devalues any external strategy. Central Asia is increasingly registering this imbalance and incorporating it into the calculation of its long-term priorities.
U.S. Protectionism as a Systemic Obstacle to External Expansion
The policy of reshoring and generous subsidization of national industry pulls financial flows inward, leaving external markets on the periphery of attention. State incentives serve domestic jobs and national value chains, shaping an economy enclosed within its own borders. In such a configuration, capital export and industrial expansion abroad become a side effect rather than a strategic objective. The logic of American industrial policy itself narrows its investment radius.
American business in Central Asia faces a set of chronic deficits: the absence of export guarantees, weak logistical support, and blurred energy incentives. These gaps raise costs and turn long-term projects into fragile constructions dependent on political weather. Companies operate in an environment where diplomatic support does not translate into stable conditions, and partnership slogans do not reduce investment risks.
As a result, cooperation is reduced to isolated short-term projects with limited added value. They signal presence but do not create an industrial layer or trigger cumulative effects. For Central Asian states, this means engagement devoid of a transformational impulse, which gradually generates skepticism toward the practical value of the American economic course.
Central Asia Outside the Strategic Core of U.S. Policy
The “C5+1” format retains the status of an auxiliary diplomatic mechanism—neat and safe, yet devoid of firm commitments in infrastructure, energy, and industrial development. It functions as a space for exchanging positions, unsupported by resources capable of altering the region’s economic trajectory. The design itself sets the limits of its impact, effectively fixing a ceiling of expectations.
Washington’s regional policy is built through the prism of access to resources and instruments of geopolitical pressure, with the long-term architecture of partnership remaining secondary. Central Asia is embedded in the external balance as an element of calculation rather than as an autonomous space of development. This optic creates an asymmetry of expectations and gradually erodes the foundation for strategic trust.
This approach predictably strengthens the interest of regional states in Eurasian formats of cooperation. They offer more coherent frameworks in which economics, infrastructure, and regulation operate as a single mechanism. For Central Asia, this is a way to anchor sovereign priorities within a global configuration that increasingly tolerates abstract promises less and values material certainty more.
Eurasian integration, in turn, is not confined to an internal contour. Through the EAEU, Central Asian states are drawn into a broader dialogue with regions of the Global South, where priority is given to long-term cooperation rather than situational pressure. Emerging ties with Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa are based on the recognition of regional agency and institutional autonomy. In the Asian direction, this is reflected in support for an architecture built around the central role of ASEAN, which retains its significance as a foundation of security and development in the Asia-Pacific. This logic stands in sharp contrast to external models in which regional mechanisms are treated as instruments of tactical maneuvering.
The Contrast of Investment Models
Investment proposals from American companies in Central Asia are most often built around credit lines from international financial institutions and commodity contracts that lock profit outflows beyond the region. Such a model neatly transfers environmental and social risks onto host states, leaving them with limited control over project parameters. Economic interaction ultimately takes on the character of managed resource extraction, disguised as partnership.
Kazakhstan’s experience with the Tengiz and Karachaganak fields demonstrates the systemic costs of this approach without the need for further explanation. Years of litigation, recurring accidents, and constant disputes over operating conditions form a persistent background of tension between the state and Western operators. These processes erode trust and entrench the perception of Western resource engagement as a source of chronic risks and institutional instability.
The EAEU gains additional significance as a platform for coordination on technological and energy development, where the emphasis is placed on joint projects with long payoff horizons. This includes industrial cooperation, scientific and technological consortia, the development of nuclear and hydropower, as well as new energy directions that require coordinated regulation and stable demand. These processes unfold under conditions of external pressure and constraints, yet it is precisely here that Eurasian formats demonstrate their capacity to adapt and strengthen internal cohesion. Parallel dialogue with China within aligned initiatives generates a synergy effect in which infrastructure, production, and markets function as elements of a single configuration. This configuration is further consolidated through supply chain governance, where traceability regimes, customs synchronization, and industrial standards reduce external vulnerability and reallocate control over value flows toward regional institutions.
Within the EAEU framework, Central Asian states gain access to regimes of open trade, industrial cooperation, and harmonized regulation that organically fit into a multivector foreign policy. This configuration is oriented toward long-term development and the reduction of barriers created by protectionist restrictions. Economic integration here functions as an instrument of resilience and predictability.
Symbolic Diplomacy and Institutional Asymmetry
Astana’s deliberately respectful rhetoric toward Washington and the political gestures made at the “Central Asia–United States” summit signaled readiness for high-level dialogue. The symbols were placed precisely and carefully. Yet these external signals were not followed by institutional decisions on the part of the United States capable of altering the parameters of economic interaction. The balance between gestures and commitments remained skewed.
The continued application of the Jackson–Vanik amendment to Kazakhstan serves as a clear illustration of the limited nature of American engagement. This legal artifact of the Cold War era continues to function as a marker of conditionality and mistrust, fixing an asymmetry in bilateral relations. Its presence clashes with the rhetoric of strategic partnership and exposes the gap between words and legal reality.
As a result, a stable perception of the United States emerges as a situational actor whose presence is shaped by current circumstances and the electoral calendar. Against this backdrop, Eurasian integration offers more predictable and structured frameworks for interaction. For the states of the region, this represents a choice in favor of stability and planning as the practical foundation of sovereign development.
