How the US election outcome could impact the Western Balkans

On September 23, Donald Trump's oldest son, Donald Jr., sat down to dinner with Serbian businesspeople in Belgrade to discuss investment opportunities.

This was not a first for the Trump family: The former president's contacts to Serbian entrepreneurs and government representatives go as far back as 2013.

At the time, Ivica Dacic, then prime minister of Serbia, spoke publicly of Trump's interest in a real estate project.

The object in question was the former headquarters of the Yugoslav People's Army, which was seriously damaged in the NATO bombardment of 1999. But the negotiations came to nothing.

Billion-dollar contract

Then, in May of this year, Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, led by the former US ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, sealed the deal. The billion-dollar contract includes a 99-year lease on the complex.

Grenell is seen as a likely candidate for the post of secretary of state should Trump win the presidential election in November. He was considered the most unpopular post-war US ambassador in Berlin during his time at the embassy. The Swiss daily newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) went as far as to call him an "undiplomat" because of his "loutish behavior."

Donald Trump Jr. recently praised him as the "top contender for secretary of state."

Trump's failed Balkan course 2020

As Trump's special envoy for the Balkans, it was Grenell who pulled the strings in 2020 when Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti was ousted because he stood in the way of another deal.

The agreement in question was allegedly about a territorial exchange along ethnic lines between Serbia and Kosovo. In June 2020, the then president of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, and Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic wanted to meet Trump in the White House to sign the agreement.

According to reports, the agreement would have seen the four predominantly ethnic Serb communities in northern Kosovo becoming part of Serbia. In return, the predominantly ethnic Albanian Presevo Valley in southern Serbia would have become part of Kosovo.

A land swap such as this could have had a domino effect in the region because the states of the Western Balkans are all still largely multiethnic.

Domino effect in the Balkans

Bosnian-Serb leader Milorad Dodik had already threatened that were the land exchange to take place, the Republika Srpska — the predominantly Serb part of Bosnia and Herzegovina — would join Serbia.

This could have led to a new Balkan war. The ethnically motivated redrawing of borders harbors huge potential for conflict.

But Trumps plans were frustrated by an indictment against President Thaci from the Kosovo Tribunal in The Hague. Thaci handed himself over to the court.

Close links between Trump's circle and Serbia

Meanwhile, Grenell's enduring popularity in Serbia is illustrated by the fact that Marko Duric, Serbia's ambassador to the US, recently said that Grenell was "undoubtedly Serbia's friend."

In 2023, President Vucic 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 victory mean for the region?

Trump's pro-Serbian stance hints at what the Western Balkans could expect if the Republican were to be returned to the Oval Office in November.

The line taken by Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris, on the other hand, has not so far been as clear cut. Nevertheless, some conclusions can be drawn on the basis of both her personal background and foreign policy views.

It is considered unlikely that Harris would favor Serbian nationalists or any other ethnonationalists. In addition, Harris's pro-Ukraine stance is well documented.

It is possible that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned her of Moscow's alleged plans to destabilize the Balkans or to open up new fronts there with the help of pro-Moscow irredentist Serbian nationalists.

The close ties between Belgrade and Moscow could push Harris to change America's course.

US 'needs to be tougher with Serbia'

Edward Joseph, a conflict researcher at the renowned Johns Hopkins University, recently criticized that the Biden administration had "cozied up" to Serbia.

He went on to say that Vucic has shifted Belgrade's orientation ever eastwards and that there was no reason why Harris, if elected, should continue Biden's unsuccessful policy.

Former US diplomat Shaun Byrnes took the same line, recommending that the US needs to be "tougher with Serbia because it continues to have a hostile approach towards Kosovo."

Biden's 'fantasy diplomacy' in the Balkans

Daniel Serwer, a veteran diplomat who has worked with Richard Holbrooke, the architect of the Dayton Peace Agreement, has described Biden's Balkans policy as "fantasy diplomacy."

In Serwer's eyes, to build up Vucic, the man who was Slobodan Milosevic's propaganda minister in the 1990s, as an anchor of stability was far removed from reality.

The frequent visits to Moscow by Vucic ally and Serbian deputy PM Aleksandar Vulin, who recently assured Russian President Vladimir Putin in person that Serbia is "Russia's strategic partner and ally" casts doubt on the US's Balkans policy.

The activities of members of Trump's circle in Belgrade have shown that if the former president is reelected in November, economic objectives will be at the forefront of America's Western Balkans policy in the future.

The fact that Serbia's President Vucic has excellent relations with Putin suits Trump down to the ground.

Concern about a possible second Trump administration

For Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Montenegro, however, all of this is alarming. Because although Bosnia and Kosovo are two clearly pro-American, pro-Western states with Muslim majority populations, they cannot automatically rely on US protection against Serbia's expansionist cravings if Trump is reelected.

Trump has shown in the past that he has no qualms about dropping allies if it suits his agenda.

In December 2018, for example, he announced that he would be withdrawing most US troops from Syria. In so doing, he betrayed the Kurds, who had done most of the fighting on the ground in the battle against Islamic State (IS). This betrayal of allies led the then US Defense Secretary James Mattis to resign.

Before Grenell's Serbia-Kosovo swap land deal collapsed, Trump had threatened Kosovo PM Albin Kurti on a number of occasions that he would withdraw US troops from Kosovo. The presence of these troops is seen as a life insurance policy for Kosovo, whose independence Serbia does not recognize.

Whether NATO's KFOR troops could guarantee Kosovo's security without the Americans is at the very least questionable.

But the Biden administration would appear to have taken at least one precaution in this respect: The US has supplied Kosovo with 250 Javelin anti-tank missiles, which it also sent to Ukraine. Turkey has also supplied its Bayraktar drones, which are no less effective.

Without these two weapons systems, Ukraine would no longer exist as an independent state.

Kosovo, incidentally, does not have any combat tanks. Unlike Serbia, which has about 250. In short, the number of Javelins supplied by the US was certainly no coincidence.

Alexander Rhotert is a political scientist and author. A researcher of former Yugoslavia since 1991, he has worked for the UN, NATO, OSCE and the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, among other organizations.

This article was originally published in German.