US President Donald Trump said Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan will be invited to next year’s G20 summit hosted by the US. The Trump administration wants to further strengthen its relations with Central Asian countries. Trump made this announcement on Tuesday after separate phone conversations with Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are not members of the G20. But the host country of this summit held every year often invites non-member countries as well. The 2026 G20 summit is proposed to be held at Trump’s golf club near Miami, Florida. Posting about these conversations on social media, Trump said, ‘Our relations with both countries are excellent.’ Trump is currently vacationing at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Last month, the leaders of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, along with the leaders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, visited Washington and spoke to Trump.
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The American administration is now paying more attention to Central Asia. The region has large reserves of minerals and produces about half of the world’s uranium. These resources are critical to the growing need for rare metals needed for high-tech equipment such as smartphones, electric vehicles and fighter aircraft.
Exports of critical minerals from Central Asia have long been tilted towards China and Russia. During last month’s visit, President Tokayev announced that his Muslim-majority country would join the Abraham Accords. This is an initiative of the Trump administration, which aims to strengthen relations between Israel and Arab and Muslim majority countries.
This step is considered largely symbolic. This comes at a time when the administration is trying to revive a major foreign policy initiative of Trump’s first term, under which Israel established diplomatic and trade relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.
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Trump also announced last month that he would bar South Africa from attending next year’s G20 summit in Miami. Along with this, in this year’s meeting, they had decided to stop all payments and subsidies given to South Africa due to the treatment done to the American government representative.
Trump also decided that no US government delegation would participate in the G20 summit hosted by South Africa this year. He said that this was done because there was violent oppression of white Africans. South Africa has rejected this claim as baseless and said that the country has suffered the pain of racial apartheid for decades.
