US Secretary of State Marco Rubio encounter Tajik Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin visited Washington on June 30, using the meeting to press for increased commercial engagement in critical minerals and deeper cooperation on security and counterterrorism. Rubio led the meeting on social networks around minerals and terrorism. On the same day, the two governments held their Annual bilateral consultations — the first under the second Trump administration and, by the State Department’s own account, a reboot after a four-year hiatus.
Tajik read aloud was broader, listing trade, investment, energy, transport infrastructure and the digital economy alongside standard language on extremism and transnational crime. But Washington’s interest seems to be more limited and more concrete: antimony.
The metal hardens munitions, is used in semiconductors and flame retardants, and is not an easy substitute in many defense applications. Tajikistan is the world’s second largest producer of antimony, accounting for around a quarter of global production. Its antimony reserves are the third largest in the world, and only 6% of Tajikistan has been geologically surveyed.
In December 2024, China (which dominates the market) bans antimony exports to the United Stateswhich imports 20,000 to 25,000 tonnes per year, mainly from Chinese suppliers. Prices have almost doubled. For a Washington administration that has made mineral supply chains a priority, Dushanbe suddenly matters — and the United States isn’t the only bidder. The European Union is already drawing more than half of its antimony from Tajikistan and is looking for the same supply.
Although Washington recognized Tajikistan’s independence nearly 35 years ago, in the first part of this century the United States (and its NATO allies) treated Central Asia primarily as a logistical hub for the war in Afghanistan, giving rise to the North’s distribution network, non-lethal security assistance, and a French base at Dushanbe airport which emptied in 2014 (the United States left its base in neighboring Kyrgyzstan that same year).
THE C5+1 PlatformLaunched by then-Secretary of State John Kerry in 2015 during the Obama administration, aimed to engage the region beyond Afghanistan but fell short for a decade. The chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021 subsequently reminded regional capitals how quickly the United States can leave and the security implications of its absence. Russia’s war in Ukraine and resulting sanctions have done more to revive American appeal than any U.S. initiative, diverting trade and pushing Central Asian states to diversify.
The C5+1 of November 2025 tenth anniversary summit was the second gathering of this type at the level of heads of state, after conversation on the sidelines of the 2023 UN General Assembly in New York, hosted by then-President Joe Biden. But the 2025 summit was the first to bring all five Central Asian presidents together at the White House.
For Dushanbe, the summit produced tangible benefits: more than $3 billion in trade deals involving U.S. and Tajik companies, plus billions more with other Central Asian states. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Paul Kapur praised Tajikistan’s role in border security and its ties under the State Partnership Program with Virginia, and Dushanbe agreed to host the upcoming B5+1 business forum. Two months earlier, the two governments had signed a five-year health cooperation memorandum.
But the United States and Tajikistan have yet to sign a single contract on antimony – the mineral at the center of Washington’s agenda for Tajikistan.
China has a majority of mining permits in Tajikistan and buys much of what the country digs up; Russia takes most of the rest. Largest antimony mining, TALCO Gold’s Konchoch Complexis a joint venture with a Chinese partner, and its production is moving north and east, not west. The United States accounts for only 2.1% of Central Asia’s essential mineral exports..
Dushanbe has its own reasons for moving slowly. In October, he welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin and signed 16 agreements strengthening an alliance with Moscow, on which around 1.2 million Tajik migrant workers and remittances equivalent to a third of the country’s GDP still depend.
Days before Rubio’s meeting, Kazakhstan became the first Central Asian capital to join Pax Silicathe US-led bloc built to remove critical minerals, semiconductors and AI infrastructure from China’s orbit. Tajikistan, which holds a mineral that the initiative aimed to secure, is not a member. Its opening to the United States has so far amounted to a reading, a memorandum and an invitation to a business forum, while the antimony continues to flow to China.