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Shkruar nga Alexander Rhotert
Richard Grenell was once Donald Trump's man for the Balkans, son-in-law Jared Kushner has long looked after Trump's businesses in the region, and former governor Rod Blagojevich is rumored to be the US ambassador.
The first weeks of Donald J. Trump's second presidency confirmed the New York Times headline on the day he took office: "The Deal Maker in Chief is back." Even in his foreign policy, it seems to be becoming clear that Trump's leitmotif will remain his "beloved deals."
For example: Ukraine will continue to receive American military aid if it guarantees the US access to its deposits of raw materials such as rare earths and lithium in return. Or the "takeover" of the Gaza Strip to create a "Middle Eastern riviera". Or the Trump classic: A "Trump Tower", this time in the Serbian capital, Belgrade.
The project, which failed in 2012, is now ready to begin construction. The move, which came to fruition 13 years later, was largely driven by Trump's closest adviser, Richard "Ric" Grenell, who was the president's special envoy for the Balkans during his first term and whom the president has now made his "special envoy for missions."
Grenell has close, almost friendly, relations with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and his Foreign Minister Marko Đurić, who previously served as Serbia's ambassador to Washington. Grenell received a medal from Vučić in 2023 for his "balanced approach" to Europe's newest state, the Republic of Kosovo, which Serbia still claims as its own 26 years after the end of the Kosovo war.
In March 2024, the Serbian government, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Arab investors reached an agreement for the Trump Tower Belgrade, which the New York Times estimates will cost half a billion dollars. The plan: The former headquarters of the armed forces of Serbia, or the former Yugoslavia, will be transformed into a luxury apartment hotel complex - with a memorial to the victims of the 1999 NATO airstrike that hit the building. It would be the fifth "Trump Tower" in the world, after New York, Chicago, Manila, and Istanbul.
The potential ambassador - A controversial political figure even by Trump's standards
Politico magazine reported last week that Trump is considering nominating the former Democratic governor of Illinois as U.S. ambassador to Belgrade. Blagojevich, the son of Serbian immigrants, was removed from office in 2009 and three years later sentenced to 14 years in prison for corruption.
Trump commuted Blagojevich's sentence during his first term, and he was later released early in 2020. This makes him an ideal candidate for Trump, says Prof. Daniel Serwer, a Balkans expert at the renowned Johns Hopkins University and US negotiator for the Balkans under President Bill Clinton, to DW: "Blago is the perfect man for Belgrade: a deeply corrupt politician who is willing to do whatever Trump wants in order to rehabilitate himself."
In fact, after his dismissal in 2010, Blagojevich participated in Trump's then-running television show "Celebrity Apprentice." After the Republican Party Convention, which elected Trump as the presidential candidate in May 2024, he and Grenell campaigned, especially in communities with Serbian-origin voters in the US, where Trump achieved high support - as well as among Serbian nationalist politicians in Serbia and the neighboring Western Balkan states of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, where Serbs also live.
In the spring of 2024, five American businessmen of Serbian origin attended a reception at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, among them Ranko Ristic, founder of Zastava Arms USA, which exclusively imports firearms from the Serbian firm Zastava Oruzje to the United States. During the reception, Trump introduced Blagojevich as a "great friend" and "close collaborator," Ristic says. He himself had told Trump how the Serbs in Bosnia had to defend themselves against 3,000 mujahideen in the 1991-1995 war.
Blagojevich, on the other hand, met with Vučić in Belgrade last week. There, he harshly criticized Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti in the media and accused him of "ethnic cleansing" of Serbs in Kosovo. In 1999, the US, together with NATO allies, used airstrikes to force Serbia to withdraw its security forces from its then southern province to prevent the expulsion of the majority Albanian population from Kosovo. Now Blagojevich has explicitly apologized to Vučić for US participation in the Kosovo war. "My country did something terrible to your country in the 1990s," Trump's potential ambassador to Serbia told the Serbian president. "It's no different than what Russia is doing in Ukraine (...) President Trump will work to improve relations between our countries."
Campaign against Kosovo
Edhe i afërmi i Trumpit Grenell e ka kritikuar disa herë kryeministrin aktual të Kosovës Kurti. Ai priti në Uashington një ditë para inaugurimit të Trump një kundërshtar të kreut të qeverisë, ish-kryeministrin Ramush Haradinaj. Ai më vonë postoi në kanalin X të KosovoOnline se "nuk do të ishte mirë për Kosovën”, "nëse Kurti qëndron në pushtet”. Kurti shkaktoi zemërimin e Grenellit në vitin 2020, sepse hodhi poshtë një shkëmbim të territoreve ndërmjet Kosovës dhe Serbisë, që e kishte propozuar negociatori amerikan.
Këtyre zhvillimeve jashtëzakonisht pozitive për Vuçiçin i kundërvihen protestat masive, që kanë tronditur Serbinë që nga fillimi i nëntorit.Javët e fundit retorika e presidentit serb lidhur me Kosovën është bërë më radikale - ndoshta për të shkëputur vëmendjen nga problemet e dukshme të brendshme politike.
Ministri i Jashtëm i Vuçiçit, Gjuriç e përshkroi Kosovën në "Berliner Zeitung" si "krahinën tonë jugore", në të cilën serbët i nënshtrohen "diskriminimit dhe maltrajtimit të vazhdueshëm". Shefi i Shtabit të Përgjithshëm Milan Mojsiloviç tha për të përditshmen "Vecernje novosti” se forcat e armatosura serbe ishin të gatshme të "mbronin" serbët dhe joshqiptarët e tjerë në territorin e krahinës sonë jugore. Duke thënë se në Kosovë ka "indikatorë të destabilizimit të mundshëm”. Vuçiç, i cili e kishte quajtur Kurtin "llum terrorist", e përshkroi tani atë në kanalin serb Happy TV si një "zuzar", që "urren serbët".
Fjala është edhe për Bosnjën
Dr. Kurt Bassuener, drejtor i think-tankut Democratization Policy Council në Berlin, paralajmëron për DW, se jo vetëm integriteti territorial i Kosovës është i kërcënuar nga aspiratat e Serbisë së Madhe, por edhe ai i Bosnjës. BE mund të reagojë ndaj agresionit të Beogradit ndaj vendeve fqinje, duke rritur ndjeshëm numrin e trupave luftarake të EUFOR/Althea.
Në këtë situatë një ekip amerikan për Ballkanin, Grenell-Kushner-Blagojevich, do të ishte një dhuratë për Beogradin – me një lidhje direkte me Shtëpinë e Bardhë. Përmirësimi i marrëdhënieve të Serbisë me Kosovën - gjithsesi i vështirë - do të bëhej edhe më i largët. Kontaktet e shumta mes treshes së Trumpit dhe zyrtarëve të qeverisë serbe si dhe deklaratat dhe postimet e Grenellit dhe Blagojevichit për Vuçiçin dhe kundër Kurtit janë shenja të përgatitjeve në SHBA.
The recent Serbian attacks on NATO and Kosovo security forces, as well as the deployment of Serbian troops on the border with Kosovo, were responded to by the EU in 2023 with sanctions - paradoxically against Kosovo. Only the personal intervention of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken with Vučić and the great pressure of NATO were able to turn Serbia's tanks back. Today, Western Balkans experts Serwer and Bassuener doubt that the US would militarily stop Vučić's army in an emergency. Serwer also warns that the mere discussion of the partition of Kosovo or Ukraine would encourage Serbian secessionists in Bosnia to take corresponding actions.
"Then it would be up to the Bosnians to react. And in Kosovo, Javelins would be the best defense," Serwer tells DW. Without the supply of highly effective American anti-tank missiles of the "Javelin" type, successful defense against a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was unthinkable. An escalation of potential hotbeds of conflict in the Western Balkans, the EU's "inner courtyard", surrounded on all sides by EU states, is becoming more likely given the current security policy situation. /Deutsche Welle
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