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Shkruar nga Skënder Minxhozi
Another irritating topic for President Trump is that of justice. In this respect too, the American stance regarding Albanian justice has gradually and indirectly reflected President Trump's bad humor with US courts and prosecutors.
In the wake of the relatively quiet elections of May 11, by Albanian election standards, one topic perhaps kept the post-electoral debate tense more than any other for many days. It was the “speaking silence” of the American embassy in Tirana regarding the result, the winners and the losers. More precisely, the silence of the American authorities who were not yet sending the occasional messages about the results of the votes and the way they were conducted. Such a clear and irrevocable message has traditionally been the gong for the end of the electoral race in our country for these 34 years.
The American stance has been widely accepted as the standard for evaluating elections in Albania. Just as the losing side has always found it difficult to reject or ignore it, the winning side has also been careful with its words and reactions when the statement from Washington has been criticized or ignored.
This year will be different. Just as many, many things have been different for the entire globe after January 20, when Donald Trump entered the Oval Office for the second time. Not only Berisha is upset with the American silence, Europeans are also upset with their great ally imposing tariffs, both hemispheres and over 170 countries that live in them are upset with the modifications of American foreign policy. The US has promised to change its foreign policy, redoing the historical milestones of its diplomacy that pushed it to be everywhere and to talk, and sometimes to decide, about everything.
Without going into detail about this process, which is expected to be long and extremely complex, the American media recently announced that the Trump administration has decided to abandon its interventionist line in electoral processes around the world, taking a neutral and protocol position. “The State Department will intervene in foreign elections only when there is a clear and strong interest for the United States, focusing on strategic importance and not on the spread of democratic values,” writes the major network Fox News.
And we Albanians also had a small proof of this on May 11, in this corner of Europe. While the Biden administration was everywhere before, during and after the elections with statements and positions, sometimes urgent and critical, the US embassy in Tirana remained silent for a long time as the election result took shape. So much so that, contrasting this unusual position with the noisy figures of the socialists, the opposition did not delay in creating a cloud of smoke regarding what it called “American dissatisfaction with the Albanian elections”. “You see that they have not congratulated him, wait until they lift his visa. It is a matter of hours” – how many hours of television, articles and comments and analyses have been poured into the Albanian airwaves as a variation of this message after May 11, which was de facto the last saving grace that Sali Berisha had in the face of Edi Rama's 83 mandates.
The opposition's prognosis for American discontent turns out to be false, as one reads the Fox News article. The US seeks to change the course of its missionary diplomacy, focusing on a pragmatic position and in close accordance with its strategic interests. No more spreading democracy to every corner of the globe as in the time of the GWBush Republicans, nor a global preaching of values or a list of orders to a multitude of countries, as happened with the Obama or Biden administrations. This line seems to have ended, in exchange for a colder and less paternalistic positioning on these topics.
A retreat or a reformatting of the increased protagonism of recent decades, this is something that will take shape in the coming months and years. One thing is certain from the beginning: Donald Trump is allergic to democratic lectures when it comes to elections. Many remember how the contestation he made to defeat Joe Biden in the 2020 elections degenerated into the attack on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, where there were deaths and injuries. The topic of elections is a sore point for Trump, and most likely the new position of the State Department also reflects this concrete circumstance related to America after 2021 in its diplomatic course.
Another irritating topic for President Trump is that of justice. In this respect too, the American stance regarding Albanian justice has gradually and indirectly reflected President Trump's bad humor with US courts and prosecutors, who threw a mountain of over 90 charges at him before the last presidential election.
The silence of the Americans in recent months towards SPAK and generally towards the reform of the judiciary, has "spoke" quite eloquently without opening its mouth. No more declarations in support of the new Albanian judiciary, no more meetings and protocol photos with its representatives, but simply a tacit agreement with the European positions on this topic. It has been noticeable in recent months, for example, that meetings of American diplomats with heads of the new judiciary have been held in British or European embassies, but not in the American embassy as was usually the case.
It is logical to think that this cooling of Washington towards this project, financed with American money and strongly supported since the first days after 2015, is related to a changed attitude of the Trump administration towards the justice system in general. Which Donald Trump himself has accused of being an inquisitorial department that selectively and tendentiously attacks political opponents.
These modifications of American policy towards Albania mark a turning point that will produce its effects on the Albanian scene. For better or worse, this remains to be seen. We must begin to teach ourselves that we will no longer have the eternal American arbiter above us, telling us what is right and what is wrong. This is an opportunity to create our maturity and independence, just as it may also be a circumstance that will worsen, at least in the first steps, the situation regarding the implementation of the law, democratic standards and the solidity of the state. However, for the Americans this already matters little. They have embraced the “America First” platform and this means giving up many of the shoulder pads they have worn on the world stage. We have entered a new world together with many others around us, or even in the most distant corners of the globe. We must learn to swim on our own.
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