Secretary of State Marco Rubio, left, and US Ambassador Sergio Gor, right, meet with Uzbekistan Head of Presidential Administration Saida Mirziyoyeva at the Department of State in Washington, DC, April 7, 2026. Gor has prioritized India over Central Asia as US special envoy. (The State Department/Freddie Everett)

Can Sergio Gor Do More in Central Asia?

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The special envoy for South and Central Asian Affairs has worked hard to cultivate relationships in India. Yet, he is in a unique position to deepen US-Central Asia ties. 

American diplomacy can afford at least one flamboyant ambassador, somewhere in the world, whose diplomacy has panache and is well-known in their assigned country.

In the Biden administration, it was Rahm Emmanuel in Japan, who gained the moniker “Rahm-san” and was well-liked in the country. In Donald Trump’s first term, it was Christopher Landau in Mexico, who is fluent in Spanish and became a “star” of Mexican Twitter. Barack Obama had Jon Huntsman, Jr. in China—a Mandarin speaker with a “down-to-earth” reputation for eating street food and riding a bicycle to work—while George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had Ryan Crocker across the Middle East, whom Bush praised as “America’s Lawrence of Arabia.”

In Trump’s second term, that title unequivocally goes to Sergio Gor. The 39-year-old political operative and Trump loyalist is the US ambassador to India and special envoy for South and Central Asian Affairs. In India, Gor has amassed a reputation for his lavish parties, elite connections, widespread Indian travel, social media savvy, and, most importantly, a direct line to the White House, where he helped select many of Trump’s top appointees.

But what about Central Asia? It’s part of Gor’s portfolio, too, and a region to which he has deep personal ties. Gor was born “Sergey Gorokhovsky” in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, during the Soviet Union. He is a native speaker of Russian, the region’s lingua franca. With these connections, one might expect Gor to move across Central Asia with as much swagger as in India. At the very least, he might take an interest in the land of his birth.

This has not been the case. Central Asia, under Gor’s purview, remains a relatively limited space for US engagement. There are a few reasons why, and there are opportunities the United States could still pursue to deepen its leverage there. Gor, as the man in charge of Trump’s Central Asia policy, could do more to seize them.

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© The National Interest