Features | Diplomacy | East Asia

Beyond the Third Neighbor: Mongolia-US Ties in an Era of Great Power Competition

U.S. Ambassador Richard R. Buangan talks to The Diplomat about the future of the partnership.

Mongolia’s Prime Minister Zandanshatar Gombojavyn shakes hands with U.S. Ambassador to Mongolia Richard L. Buangan on June 30, 2025, shortly after Zandanshatar was appointed PM.

On January 27, the United States and Mongolia marked the 39th anniversary of diplomatic relations, which were first established in 1987 amid the waning years of the Cold War. For nearly four decades, this bilateral bond has served as the cornerstone of Mongolia’s landmark “Third Neighbor” doctrine – a deliberate, sovereignty-centered strategy to diversify its foreign relations beyond its two immediate neighbors, Russia and China. 

Today, against the backdrop of intensifying great power competition, Washington’s ongoing reorientation of its Indo-Pacific strategy, and the second Trump administration’s “America First” foreign policy (enshrined in the December 2025 National Security Strategy, and centered on focused, results-oriented diplomacy), the Mongolia-U.S. strategic partnership stands at a defining inflection point.

This inflection point was sharply defined by a landmark diplomatic move just days before the anniversary. On January 22, Mongolia’s Prime Minister Gombojavyn Zandanshatar signed the Charter of the Board of Peace in Davos, Switzerland, formalizing Mongolia’s status as a founding member of the Trump-led international body. The move marks the most significant update to Mongolia’s “Third Neighbor” playbook in years. It comes as the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) – a core pillar of Mongolia’s global peacekeeping engagement – is set to wind down in April 2026. The Board of Peace could see a role for Mongolian peacekeepers in Gaza.

But not all is rosy in Mongolia-U.S. relations. On February 2, the United States suspended immigrant visas for Mongolian citizens, including it in a list “high-risk countries” whose nationals are supposedly prone to “unlawfully utilize welfare in the United States or become a public charge.” The move strained bilateral ties.

Seven years after Mongolia and the United States upgraded their bilateral relations to a formal Strategic Partnership in 2019, pivotal questions persist regarding the depth and tangible impact of this collaboration. Has it moved beyond diplomatic pronouncements, symbolic aid, and cultural exchanges to emerge as a resilient, mutually beneficial framework that meaningfully addresses Mongolia’s core national challenges – among them energy insecurity, economic diversification away from extractive industries, and key governance imperatives? 

Against the backdrop of evolving great power dynamics, China and Russia are deepening their economic engagement with Mongolia, epitomized by two high-profile diplomatic missions in February 2026. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong visited Ulaanbaatar to reaffirm Beijing’s longstanding policy priorities for Mongolia, while Mongolian Parliament Speaker Uchral Nyam-Osor undertook a concurrent working visit to Moscow focused on advancing energy cooperation and expanding bilateral economic ties. 

To unpack these developments and the implications for the future of the Mongolia-U.S. bilateral relationship, I conducted an exclusive interview with Richard L. Buangan, the U.S. ambassador to Mongolia since November 2022.

A career Senior Foreign Service officer with deep, on-the-ground East Asian expertise, Buangan’s nearly three-year tenure spanned the final chapter of the Biden presidency, marked by then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s historic August 2024 visit to Mongolia (the first by a U.S. secretary of state in a decade), and the opening months of Trump’s second term, which saw Ulaanbaatar join the Board of Peace as a founding member. 

Buangan has centered grassroots, community-focused diplomacy throughout his time in Mongolia: he has studied traditional Mongolian script, participated in iconic cultural festivals including Naadam and Tsagaan Sar wearing the traditional Mongolian deel, and traveled extensively across the country’s rural aimags to engage directly with local communities. He has described Mongolians as “warm, hospitable, and direct” – qualities, he says, that align with the best of American straightforwardness. Beyond this genuine personal rapport, his insights on Mongolia-U.S. reveal a partnership with tangible, meaningful wins in defense, development, and education, yet one that still faces steep structural hurdles to deliver on its full economic and strategic potential for both nations.

Anniversary Milestones

Buangan opened our discussion by framing 2026 as an “extraordinary year” for both nations, tying the 39th diplomatic anniversary to two historic national commemorations: the United States’ 250th independence anniversary, branded “Freedom 250,” and the 820th anniversary of the founding of the Mongol Empire. “These are two monumental milestones, and we have a lot planned,” he said. “I look forward to collaborating with our Mongolian partners to honor these two significant anniversaries and highlight the enduring partnership between our two nations.”

While symbolic anniversaries set the stage for deeper collaboration, Buangan centered the tangible investments that have defined the bilateral relationship in recent years. The crown jewel of this cooperation is the $462 million Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Water Compact, scheduled for completion in March 2026. The project, which includes a $112 million co-investment from the Government of Mongolia, will increase Ulaanbaatar’s clean water supply by up to 80 percent, directly addressing a chronic crisis driven by explosive rural-to-urban migration in the Mongolian capital. 

“That’s a physical symbol of America’s long-term commitment to the U.S.-Mongolia partnership,” Buangan emphasized, noting that the compact embodies the Trump administration’s focus on fostering recipient country self-reliance through durable, sustainable development.

This landmark project is complemented by forward-looking initiatives to expand Mongolia’s global economic connectivity. In February 2026, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) signed an agreement with Mongolia’s Civil Aviation Authority to fund technical assistance supporting Mongolia’s pursuit of a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration Category 1 (CAT 1) safety rating. In its press release, the USTDA highlighted this as a game-changing initiative: “Achieving CAT 1 status will not only enable direct, secure air links between our two countries, it will also facilitate the export of Mongolia’s rare earth oxides and critical minerals, opening new global markets for Mongolian goods while strengthening supply chain resilience for both our nations.”

The Strategic Partnership at Seven

Seven years into the Mongolia-U.S. Strategic Partnership, Buangan offered a clear-eyed assessment of its achievements, rooted in the United States’ identity as Mongolia’s most consistent “Third Neighbor.” “Despite the geographical distance between our countries, the United States is proud to be Mongolia’s ‘’Third Neighbor,’ and it’s a commitment we take seriously,” he said. Buangan described three core pillars of measurable progress that have strengthened the partnership amid shifting global dynamics.

First, defense and security cooperation has emerged as a bedrock of the relationship, aligned with both Mongolia’s constitutionally enshrined neutral foreign policy and U.S. Indo-Pacific security priorities. Buangan highlighted the annual Khaan Quest multilateral peacekeeping exercises, co-hosted with U.S. Army Pacific, which brought together 24 nations in 2025 to strengthen multinational interoperability and humanitarian response capabilities. 

“We’ve maintained close defense cooperation, helping to modernize and professionalize the Mongolian Armed Forces, and the results speak for themselves,” Buangan said. 

Mongolia is now one of the top per capita contributors to U.N. peacekeeping operations globally, with more than 23,000 troops deployed to missions in South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Iraq and other global hotspots – a track record Buangan called a testament to Mongolia’s role as a responsible global stakeholder and trusted U.S. security partner.

Second, educational and people-to-people ties have created an enduring foundation for the Mongolia-U.S. partnership, one that transcends political cycles and geopolitical shifts. On this........

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