Donald Trump’s son goes to Belgrade, his son-in-law does business in Serbia and Albania – while in Kosovo the presidential elections in the USA are viewed with concern. What consequences will their result have for the Balkans?
The countries of the Western Balkans – especially Serbia and Kosovo – are watching the November 5 presidential election in the USA closely. What impact will the election result have on this corner of Southeast Europe? On September 23, Donald Trump’s son, Donald Jr., was accompanied by Serbian businessmen to Belgrade to discuss investment opportunities. This was not the first time for the Trump family: the former president’s contacts with entrepreneurs and government representatives began in 2013. At that time, Ivica Dacic, then the prime minister of Serbia, spoke publicly about Trump’s interest in a real estate project . The object in question was the former headquarters of the Yugoslav People’s Army, which was severely damaged during the NATO bombings of 1999. But the negotiations failed.
But in May of this year, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, led by former US ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, sealed the deal. The $1 billion contract includes a 99-year lease on the complex. Grenell is seen as a possible candidate for Secretary of State if Trump wins the presidential election in November. He is considered the most unpopular US ambassador to post-war Germany. The Swiss daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) went so far as to call him “undiplomatic” because of his “abhorrent behaviour”. Donald Trump Jr. recently praised Grenell as “the leading candidate for secretary of state.”
TRUMP’S FAILED BALKAN COURSE 2020
Grenelli, as Trump’s special envoy for the Balkans, “pulled the marionette strings” in 2020 when Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti was ousted because he stood in the way of another deal. The agreement in question allegedly involved a territorial exchange along ethnic lines between Serbia and Kosovo. In June 2020, the then president of Kosovo, Hashim Thaçi, and the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, wanted to meet with Trump at the White House to sign the agreement.
According to reports, the agreement would have allowed the four ethnic Serb majority communities in northern Kosovo to become part of Serbia. In exchange, the ethnic Albanian-majority Presheva Valley in southern Serbia would have become part of Kosovo. A territorial exchange like this could have a domino effect on the region, because the Western Balkan states are all still largely multi-ethnic.
CLOSE TRUMP-SERBIA CONNECTIONS
The leader of Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milorad Dodik, had threatened that if it became a territorial cliff, Republika Srpska would join Serbia. This cliff could bring a “new Balkan war”. Ethnic border revision has great potential for conflict. But Trump’s plans were disrupted by an indictment against President Thaçi by the Special Court of Kosovo in The Hague. Thaçi surrendered himself to the court.
Meanwhile, Grenell’s enduring popularity in Serbia is illustrated by the fact that Marko Djuric, Serbia’s former ambassador to the US, and now Serbia’s foreign minister, recently said that Grenell was “undoubtedly Serbia’s friend”. In 2023, President Vučić presented Grenell with the country’s highest order in recognition of his advocacy for Serbia, justifying his decision by saying: “I think he is one of the few people from the US who has a balanced approach to Kosovo”.
WHAT WOULD A HARRIS WIN MEAN FOR THE REGION?
Trump’s pro-Serbian stance hints at what the Western Balkans could expect if the Republican were to return to the Oval Office in November. The line followed by Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris, on the other hand, has so far not been so clear. However, some conclusions can be drawn based on her personal background and foreign policy views.
It is unlikely that Harris favors Serbian nationalists or any other ethno-nationalist group. In addition, Harris’s pro-Ukraine stance is documented. It is possible that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned him about Moscow’s alleged plans to destabilize the Balkans or open new fronts there with the help of pro-Moscow Serbian irredentist nationalists. Close ties between Belgrade and Moscow could push Harris to change America’s course.
Edward Joseph, a conflict researcher at the renowned Johns Hopkins University, recently criticized the Biden administration’s dealings with Serbia. He also said that Vucic has shifted the orientation of Belgrade like never before to the east and that there is no reason why Harris, if elected, should continue the unsuccessful policies of Biden. Former US diplomat Shaun Byrnes took the same line, recommending that the US should be “tougher with Serbia, because it continues to have a hostile approach towards Kosovo”.
BIDEN’S ‘DIPLOMATIC FANTASY’ IN THE BALKANS
Daniel Serwer, a senior diplomat who worked with Richard Holbrooke, the architect of the Dayton Peace Accords, has described Biden’s Balkan policy as a “diplomatic fantasy.” In Serwer’s eyes, to build Vucic, who had been propaganda minister under Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s, as an anchor of stability was far from reality.
Frequent visits to Moscow by Vucic’s ally and Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin, who recently personally assured Russian President Vladimir Putin that Serbia is “Russia’s strategic partner and ally,” casts doubt on US Balkan policy. The activities of members of Trump’s circle in Belgrade have shown that if the former president is re-elected in November, economic objectives will be at the forefront of America’s policy on the Western Balkans in the future. The fact that the president of Serbia, Vucic, has excellent relations with Putin, suits Trump perfectly.
CONCERNS ABOUT A POSSIBLE SECOND TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
However, for Ukraine, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Montenegro, all this is alarming. Because although Bosnia and Kosovo are two clearly pro-American, pro-Western states with Muslim-majority populations, they cannot automatically count on US protection against Serbia’s expansionist desires if Trump is re-elected president.
Trump has shown in the past that he has no problem abandoning allies if it suits his agenda. For example, In December 2018, he announced that he would withdraw most US troops from Syria. In doing so, he betrayed the Kurds, who had done most of the fighting on the ground in the battle against Islamic State (IS). This betrayal of the allies led to the resignation of the then Secretary of Defense of the USA, James Mattis.
Before the Serbia-Kosovo territorial exchange agreement failed, Trump had threatened Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti on several occasions that he would withdraw American troops from Kosovo. The presence of these troops is seen as a vital policy for the security of Kosovo, whose independence Serbia does not recognize. It is debatable whether NATO’s KFOR troops can guarantee Kosovo’s security without the Americans. But the Biden administration seems to have taken at least one precautionary measure in this regard: the US has supplied Kosovo with 250 Javelin anti-tank missiles, from those it has also sent to Ukraine. Even Turkey has supplied Kosovo with its Bayraktar drones. Without these two weapons systems, Ukraine would no longer exist as an independent state. But unlike Serbia, which has about 250 battle tanks, Kosovo has none. So the number of anti-tank missiles supplied by the US was certainly no coincidence./DW
