On February 18, 2026, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev returned to Washington for a second high-level visit within three months and presided over the signing of a set of agreements that went beyond the commercial transactions of the November 2025 C5+1 summit. The centerpiece was a Joint Investment Framework between the US International Development Finance Corporation and Uzbekistan, a document that does not simply commit capital to specific projects but proposes the creation of an entirely new institutional vehicle: a US-Uzbekistan Joint Investment Holding Company dedicated to financing the full critical minerals value chain, from geological exploration through extraction to processing and downstream manufacturing.
The framework, reported by Reuters and Mining.com and confirmed by the DFC’s own published outline, prioritizes investments across the critical mineral value chain with specific emphasis on sectors where China currently dominates: lithium and rare earth element processing, tungsten and copper refining, uranium enrichment infrastructure, and gold production. Uzbekistan holds the second largest gold mine in the world at Muruntau, operated by Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Company, and possesses significant untapped reserves of lithium, tungsten, and dozens of additional critical minerals that lie at the heart of modern semiconductor and clean energy technology. The DFC’s willingness to create a dedicated holding company, rather than simply guarantee individual project loans, signals an institutional commitment of a different order than previous US engagement with the region.
The FORGE platform and countering China’s supply chain dominance
The agreement positions Uzbekistan as an early partner in the US FORGE program, the administration’s flagship initiative to build alternative critical minerals supply chains outside Chinese influence. China’s response to President Trump’s April 2025 reciprocal tariff package included export restrictions on rare earth elements and multiple critical minerals, exposing the depth of American supply chain vulnerability. The DFC has been explicitly described by analysts as the Trump administration’s instrument for catalyzing strategic investments in resource-rich countries willing to align their minerals sectors with US supply chain priorities. Uzbekistan’s agreement is among the most advanced examples of that strategy in action.
The competitive backdrop makes the institutional design of the holding company particularly significant. China’s total trade with the five Central Asian republics reached 106.3 billion dollars in 2025, a 12 percent annual increase, while US bilateral trade with the region’s largest partner Kazakhstan stood at approximately 5.5 billion dollars in 2024. A joint holding company with institutional permanence, dedicated staffing, and a co-investment mandate creates the kind of lasting commercial architecture that can begin to shift those proportions over time, rather than relying on summit-to-summit momentum that dissipates between political cycles.
February 2026 visit confirms Uzbekistan’s elevated US relationship
The February 18 visit produced additional agreements beyond the DFC framework. Mirziyoyev met with US administration officials and leading business executives in sessions that yielded several further arrangements designed to expand and de-risk American investment in key Uzbek economic sectors. The visit was also significant for its timing: Mirziyoyev was in Washington to attend the inaugural meeting of Trump’s Board of Peace, a multilateral consultative mechanism that Kazakhstan’s Tokayev also joined and that positions both countries at the diplomatic table alongside the United States on questions of regional and global economic governance. The Eurasianet analysis of the visit described the outcome as laying the foundation for systematic economic cooperation, emphasizing that the word systematic is doing real work in the framing. Previous US engagement with Central Asia was characterized by episodic interest followed by institutional neglect. The combination of a US-Uzbekistan Business and Investment Council established by presidential decree, a DFC joint holding vehicle for minerals, a NVIDIA AI infrastructure partnership, a visa-free regime for American travelers, and a bilateral meeting frequency that has now reached three times in five months suggests that both governments are investing in the relationship’s institutional load-bearing capacity rather than simply its headline optics. That structural shift is, in the long run, more consequential than any individual deal figure.
