Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Uzbekistan\u2019s team will head home after its final group-stage match today, against the Democratic Republic of Congo. But the country has worked to use its d\u00e9but World Cup performance \u2014 the first ever by a Central Asian nation \u2014 to help Washington policymakers put a face to a geographical name once recognizable.<\/p>\n
Before the team\u2019s match against Portugal this week, a group of ambassadors, policymakers and government officials met in Houston to discuss the United States\u2019 burgeoning reliance on the \u201cCentral Five\u201d nations \u2014 Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan \u2014 for critical minerals. The only one of those so-called C5 countries to qualify for the World Cup is Uzbekistan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis emergence of Uzbekistan on the soccer scene as a world-class team playing in the World Cup is sort of a microcosm for what\u2019s happening for the entire C5 region,\u201d Assistant Secretary of Commerce David Fogel said at the panel,<\/a> which was hosted by the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition and the State Department. \u201cThe C5 region is front and center in everyone\u2019s mind.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump is scaling up America\u2019s footprint in Central Asia in hopes of reducing American reliance on Chinese supply chains, as Beijing grows increasingly dominant in the critical minerals sphere. In November, he hosted Uzbekistan\u2019s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev at the White House to discuss the nations\u2019 growing economic ties \u2014 and Mirziyoyev walked away agreeing to a $400 million investment<\/a> in American companies\u2019 critical minerals and rare earths supply chains.<\/p>\n That commitment is \u201cgood not just for our economy, but also for our national security,\u201d said Richard Parker, the leadership coalition\u2019s senior policy adviser, \u201cwhen you consider that China really has the market on the processing of critical minerals globally.\u201d<\/p>\n