Central Asia at a Crossroads: Türkiye, EU, China, D. Trump's Risky Operation
While D. Trump continues to play the global game of maintaining attention, simultaneously showing illustrative examples of high-quality earnings, by the way, from his own books like “The Gift of Midas”, “Think Like a Billionaire”, etc., in other areas of politics, a lot of interesting things are also happening, although not so bright. This is the fight for Central Asia.
However, the events of the “Day of Duties” on April 9, and indeed throughout the week, unfolded so widely across the globe that they require special attention.
Midas Day in the USA
It must be said that the American president, in a very non-trivial way (by blow), managed to conduct several stress tests at once, comparable in scale to crisis shocks, to understand the logic of the behavior of internal and external players in such a situation, while not forgetting all those who were truly involved in his election.
Apparently, this decision was made by his team not without serious disagreements. I. Musk and representatives for trade and finance S. Bessent and G. Latnik cursed each other with bad words.
Who developed the model will be revealed later, however, D. Trump took the decision and carried it out. As a result, a result was obtained, and it is necessary to understand what it is.
Only the lazy have not yet spoken about earnings on the “rebound” of stock quotes, as well as about D. Trump’s words on air “buy”, (“how much did I. Musk end up getting”, etc.). However, the situation is much more interesting, and it is not him at all that we should be looking at here.
For example, D. Bezos's "Amazon", which, as you may recall, in terms of media support with its democratic "The Washington Post" took a position of "impartiality" in relation to K. Harris, had very good indicators for capitalization in January-February-March.
In fact, compared to last year, this is a whole +37-38%, but here the question is not only in day-1/price-1, day-2/price-2, but also in the trading volumes and the stability of the position for the period. In March, great breakthroughs, accomplishments and "super-deals" were expected from D. Trump, but the deals were being prepared, and with breakthroughs, everything did not work out very well. As a result, "Amazon" has already received a stable downward trend (D. Bezos as an example, but not only him) and almost crawled to the previous indicators. So the question was not only about how to make money on the fall and rebound, but to look at the reaction and make a full-fledged forecast. After all, it is already clear that trade wars are beginning.
Midas Day, and with such scale and risks, has arrived. As a result, all those involved from the first tech giants took their earnings at the moment (in this case, from 7% to 11% per day). And what about the forecast, if the same Amazon directly depends on supplies from China? Everyone was looking at the fall-rebound at the moment, and the forecast and calculation for the future were no less important.
And so we see that they decided to continue training to the maximum on the main supplier (China), and to wait with the rest. That is, for the "deep shareholders" of Bezos-Musk-Trump, the stress test, although not recognized as 100% successful, but with such large-scale risks, they decided to test further. For such a level of the task, it is necessary to show the corresponding level of prognostication, to prove it.
And this is already a different level - investment giants and the Fed/FOMS. Here, after all, the questions of the behavior of all stock exchanges as a whole, far from just the top ten.
This team risked no less, even more, with the trades in the so-called "treasuries", government debt. The fact is that on this day there were not just auctions, but auctions of a new issue: for 10 years and 30 years. That is, they tested two long periods at once on investment bison and other short ones on everyone else.
Here it was necessary to simply muster up some special audacity, since these are precisely new issues, and the Fed and its FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) are far from being D. Trump's personalities. How the investment experts and funds will work together with the Fed/FOMC on new issues - this was a serious question, this is a link between a request for money and issuance of money. Because this is direct income for the budget system in the end. At the same time, China has already begun to preemptively dump large packages of American debt.
The issues have taken place, the trades have taken place. If on April 1-4 (announcement of trade wars) the yield drop was -4%, now it is +4,3-4,5%. They have won it back. This, by the way, is a much stronger result than even the daily earnings of the top ten tech giants (and on them) of $310 billion.
That is why various Bloombergs and the like have simply raised a howl in the swamps about how, supposedly, D. Trump was not given money, therefore the duties are only for China, he has given back with the rest, he is in a panic, he is at a loss, he is allegedly already demanding a change of the head of the Federal Reserve, yes, through the court, etc. What a panic, they did not give it, they took it away... They dumped money on the market in excess.
Firstly, it is now that D. Trump can initiate such a replacement procedure - based on the result. Especially since he is cutting the budget system's expenses. Secondly, the main thing here is not so much the personalities as to show stability of the situation with long-term loans. This is where consensus in understanding between investment corporations, funds and reserve banks is important.
He showed that he can make such decisions, his team can count them and coordinate them among themselves, hence the howl. Hence the further risk of escalation with China, test further. Well, he didn't forget himself, like with crypto.
Central Asia and Türkiye
And now we can move on to Central Asia itself, where everything that was happening was viewed with the same amazement at the level of political and economic audacity. Because it was none other than the European Union that took them on again, and took them on decently.
The fact is that on April 4th the summit "C5+1" or "Central Asia - EU" took place (finally). In the EU it was pompously called "First", although it is at least the third, and with ministerial formats even more. But Ursula von der Leyen insisted on raising the status.
"We are launching a new strategic partnership with Central Asia. This means that we can rely on each other."
It should be said that, as has been written many times, large investments in the Global Gate projects were expected from the EU (the Europeans promised 300 billion in euros). In addition, the EU has already provided the most direct investments in the region - 110 billion euros, which exceeds the investments of China, Russia (however, we receive funds from labor migration), the USA, and Arabian countries.
Few people expected three hundred billion euros with such military spending by the EU, but the countries of the “Five” needed to understand where to move in principle in this turbulence - they are generally in the middle.
If China is getting closer to the EU - one option, it goes on as before (issuing loans by the teaspoon and only under its full control of the infrastructure) - another. What will the EU itself give or not give at all, the US-Russia relations, separately Great Britain and France, separately the Arabs, Uzbekistan has built special relations with the US. Let's take all this together and impose it on the fact that Central Asia lies between them all.
The EU added another 4 billion euros to the previous 12 billion euros at the summit, which ultimately gives a decent total investment weight of 132 billion euros, and this is only direct investment. Now Brussels is not stingy and gives for the Trans-Caspian transport corridor (which means, after all, for China), for water (this is generally in the top three needs), and for the extraction of minerals (we will take this into account separately).
The five eventually signed UN resolutions 541, which did not recognize the independence of Northern Cyprus (annexed by Turkey), and 550, which condemned separatism. "in the Turkish-occupied part of the Republic of Cyprus" and a recommendation on non-recognition of this part of the territory of Cyprus by other countries (Turkey). But if the resolutions are correct in terms of Northern Cyprus, then what about other claims from Ankara to Greece in the Aegean Sea, there are many of them. Now the howl on the "Greenspan quagmires" has risen in Ankara, and Turkey, we all understand, is now being rocked by protests by the EU itself.
In fact, Türkiye clearly underestimated its kind "exalted stubbornness" current Brussels elites. R. Erdogan thought that it was possible to sign a kind of "EU + Turkey" pact in exchange for markets and investments, Sweden and Finland in NATO, cooling off with Moscow, which is what he did. This is pure pragmatism, because investment money came back to him.
No, it turned out that political preferences and motivations are more important for Brussels now, because Brussels for real (not for the sake of the press) believes that he has entered into his own Trojan War with us. Military cohesion, military discipline, complete unity of narratives and political principles are required. That is, the option of water between Achilles and Hector (and selling to both) did not work out for Ankara in the Brussels plan. And Azerbaijan is also weaker, but France is still stubbornly pressing.
As a result, the Organization of Turkic States becomes nominal, since for Ankara, Northern Cyprus is a matter of principle.
The Russian Foreign Ministry called this summit "hasty", and, it must be admitted, they were absolutely right. After all, they signed, and decided a lot with the EU, and D. Trump and his comrades took a risk with a high-quality result. However, in Tashkent they were clearly preparing in advance to build bridges with the new administration and, as it turned out, not in vain.
USA-Uzbekistan
Immediately after the summit, the delegation from Uzbekistan went to the United States, where they
"agreements on cooperation in the field of critical minerals were signed, agreements were reached on investments in exploration and production of minerals, construction of high-pressure grinding complexes (HPGR), attraction of innovative technologies and creation of added value of critical raw materials, and advanced training of Uzbek specialists."
That is, the same "rare earths" were signed with Washington. Then meetings are held with Secretary of State M. Rubio "on the whole spectrum of issues."
Uzbekistan traditionally had the best relations of the five with the previous American administration, with all its (the administration's) political specifics, but for D. Trump this is not an argument, or rather, the opposite.
M. Rubio is a career, professional politician from the Republicans in the key base state of Florida. He is not a diplomat, but he has managed to compromise with the opposing camp over the years - with breaks for almost twenty years.
This is a very necessary person for D. Trump, although not the closest to him, but now M. Rubio is extremely important for Tashkent, because he, as D. Trump says, "knew how to get along" with the Democrats, and also influence within the Republicans (a connecting link), plus US foreign policy now in the Middle East (investments), etc.
These moves ("rare earths", M. Rubio), are undoubtedly smart, competently made, but this moment will be very closely monitored already in Moscow. After all, it is in Uzbekistan that we have the main investment packages in the region, nuclear power plant projects, a whole complex of new agreements. How will things go in the region between Moscow and Washington - maybe, as in the song, "hand in hand embracing", and what if not?
Subtotal
The situational map is unfolding before our eyes, and there is no such "trend" that the players are ready to fix for themselves as the main, fundamental one. Less was expected from D. Trump, more media pressure, but there is a real result, let them now try to imagine it the other way around.
That is why the Chief of Staff, Admiral Sir T. Radakin, has now rushed to China from Great Britain, where he gave a very pompous speech to Chinese cadets and held a meeting with Chinese partners.
"In-depth discussion on China-UK relations and military-to-military relations, the international and regional situation, and military-to-military exchanges and cooperation."
Relations between Russia and Britain are well known, and meanwhile one of China's largest investors is also France. E. Macron is not only threatening Russia with Napoleonic wars, he has also promised to recognize the Palestinian Authority as an independent state.
In general, things are happening in an extremely interesting way, the kaleidoscope is still spinning, and it is not going to stop even for a short time. Now we need to see what China will respond to - it also has many options for now.
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