The media note from the Office of the Spokesman, dated 13 October, lists three stops, Samarkand, Mumbai and Jamnagar, and one purpose for its Central Asian leg: the C5+1 ministerial, in the department’s words “to highlight how strategic cooperation through this diplomatic platform promotes a more peaceful and prosperous future for the United States and the countries of Central Asia”. Rubio will hold bilateral meetings with senior officials of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan and lead what the note calls a commercial delegation of more than 200 business leaders, “ushering in a new era of strengthened commercial cooperation”. No sector and no document to be signed is named in the note.
Which of the six days belongs to Samarkand is not printed either. UzDaily relayed the note at 06:24 Tashkent time on 14 October and Interfax at 03:05 Moscow time, both from the State Department’s text, neither with a date for the ministerial itself. The format dates from 2015 and brings the five foreign ministers to the table with the American secretary of state.
No sector and no document to be signed is named in the note.
The delegation lands on a date the statute set. The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act was enacted on 18 September, and section 113(a) instructs the president, “not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment”, to raise the duty on all goods from a country described in subsection (c) to a rate of up to 100% ad valorem.
That thirtieth day is Sunday 18 October, the day after Rubio’s trip begins. The section sets a deadline for the president’s action and a ceiling for the rate, and nothing in it names a country.
Subsection (c) describes the country: one that knowingly made new purchases of Russian crude oil or natural gas on or after that thirtieth day and was among the five largest importers, by total volume, of Russian crude oil or natural gas in the 12 months before enactment. Natural gas, under subsection (g)(2), is the substance of Harmonized System code 2711, liquefied petroleum gases included.
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have reason to watch the gas list, the five largest importers of Russian gas, because their own figures put them near it. Kazakhstan’s energy ministry said on 16 September that imports of Russian gas would reach 11 billion cubic metres in 2026, against 4 billion in 2025, under the supplement to QazaqGaz’s contract with Gazprom. The International Energy Agency’s forecast for Uzbekistan, carried by the Tashkent business outlet Spot on 9 July, is just over 10 billion cubic metres this year, against 7 billion in 2025 by the agency’s series and 6.5 billion by Gazprom’s.
China, Turkey and Belarus sit above them on any count: about 38.8 billion cubic metres to China in 2025 by pipeline and as LNG, 21.16 billion to Turkey and about 18 billion to Belarus. CAW’s arithmetic in September spread each buyer’s annual volume evenly over the 12 months from October 2025 to September 2026 and found Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan at about 9.2 billion cubic metres each, France at about 8.6 billion of LNG, Hungary at about 8.2 billion and Japan at about 8.1 billion of LNG, five buyers within a billion cubic metres of one another around the fifth place.
An exemption for gas exists in subsection (d) and needs two things at once: imports under 15% of Russia’s exports, which both pass at about 7% each by CAW’s estimate, and “significant steps” to reduce them, which neither has announced. Both are importing more.
What would settle the question is the written justification that section 113(g)(1) requires, with its methodology, submitted to six congressional committees not later than 10 days before any duty. For a duty on 18 October that paper was due by 8 October. A submission is what the act requires, and publication is not.
By the morning of 14 October none of the five channels where such a paper would surface, the Trade Representative, the White House, Treasury, OFAC and the Federal Register, carried a word of it. Those pages cannot show whether the committees have it.
Astana has stated a position: on 30 September the foreign ministry told Ulysmedia that Kazakhstan is outside the act’s tariff measures, in three sentences that name no volume and no exemption. Tashkent has said nothing. Samarkand puts the C5+1 format in one room at ministerial level a month after the signature.
The business delegation arrives as Tashkent prepares two of its largest industrial assets for sale. On 9 October CAW reported that American, Korean and Chinese companies were looking at UzAuto Motors while the pre-sale clean-up of Navoiazot began.
One more item sits on the Samarkand table. On 9 October the State Department designated the International Criminal Court itself under Executive Order 14203, its fact sheet of that day says, and Treasury issued a 180-day general licence for the court’s maintenance, meant to give states parties time for “diplomatic and legal resolutions that address fundamental U.S. concerns regarding the ICC”. Among the five ministers Rubio will meet, one represents the only Central Asian state that is a party to the court, Tajikistan, whose lower house voted to withdraw from its statute, Asia-Plus reported on 14 October.
The State Department’s public schedule will give Samarkand its day when the week begins. The justification the act wanted ten days before any duty was due on 8 October, and none has been published.