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When President Shavkat Mirziyoyev travelled to Washington in February 2026 at the invitation of US President Donald Trump — to attend the opening session of the Peace Council — he arrived with a nine-year economic record that his government’s own researchers say has transformed the bilateral relationship from a minor trading partnership into a substantive investment corridor.
Data compiled by Uzbekistan’s Centre for Economic Research and Reforms show that total goods and services trade between the two countries rose 4.7-fold between 2017 and 2025, climbing from $215 million to $1 billion. The growth was sharpest on the export side: Uzbekistan’s sales to the United States expanded 9.1-fold, from $32.1 million to $291.7 million, while imports from the US grew 3.9-fold, from $182.9 million to $712.3 million.
The United States’ share of Uzbekistan’s total external trade has also edged upward over the period — from 0.8 percent to 1.2 percent of overall turnover, from 0.3 percent to 0.9 percent of exports, and from 1.3 percent to 1.5 percent of imports. The figures remain modest relative to Uzbekistan’s trade with Russia, China and the European Union, but the trajectory is consistently upward.
What Uzbekistan sells — and buys
The composition of Uzbekistan’s exports to the United States is dominated by services, which account for 81 percent of the total — primarily software development, financial, information and transport services. Petroleum products, chiefly aviation kerosene, make up a further 8.6 percent. Machinery and equipment account for 3.7 percent, food products — dried fruits and vegetables, spices and rice — for 3.5 percent, and industrial goods including aluminium bars, profiles and rhenium metal for 3.3 percent.
On the import side, machinery and equipment lead at 59 percent, encompassing aircraft, automobiles and their components, computing hardware, engines, pumps, machine tools and industrial installations. Services — financial, licensing, leasing and transport — represent 20.5 percent. Chemicals, including pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, account for 9.7 percent, followed by industrial goods at 3.8 percent and food products, principally poultry, at 3.2 percent.
Investment: from $8.6 million to $383 million in eight years
The investment picture is more striking still. According to the Centre’s data, US direct investment and loans flowing into Uzbekistan rose nearly 64-fold over the nine-year period, from $8.6 million in 2017 to $383.2 million in 2025. Cumulative US direct investment and credits to Uzbekistan between 2017 and 2025 exceeded $2.9 billion in total.
As of 1 February 2026, 346 enterprises with US capital participation were operating in Uzbekistan, representing roughly 2 percent of all foreign-invested companies in the country. Of these, 146 are joint ventures and 200 are wholly US-owned foreign enterprises. Investment has been directed primarily into manufacturing — metallurgy, automotive, beverages and textiles — as well as mining, construction, services including real estate and education, and agriculture.
Diplomatic scaffolding
The Centre’s data are framed by a diplomatic timeline that began with Mirziyoyev’s first official visit to the United States in May 2018, when talks at the White House, Congress and the Pentagon produced agreements that both sides described as opening a new chapter in bilateral relations. Subsequent engagement has proceeded through bilateral meetings and the C5+1 format, which groups the five Central Asian states with the United States.
A September 2025 visit to New York for the 80th session of the UN General Assembly produced a meeting between Mirziyoyev and Trump, at which the two leaders agreed to deepen strategic partnership ties. On the sidelines, Mirziyoyev held a roundtable with American business representatives and met separately with executives from multinational companies, investment funds and financial institutions. Agreements signed during that visit covered critical minerals, civil aviation, the chemical industry and energy.
To ease people-to-people and commercial flows, a presidential decree signed on 3 November 2025 introduced visa-free entry for US citizens to Uzbekistan from 1 January 2026. The two countries already operate under a most-favoured-nation trade regime.