Krstic: Trump's administration will be more proactive in the Western Balkans than Biden's

Milan Krstic, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences, assesses that the administration of the newly elected US President Donald Trump will be more proactive in the Western Balkans compared to that of his predecessor, Joseph Biden.

Krstic emphasized that the link between politics and business will be far more pronounced than under Biden.

"The Western Balkans, which is not integrated into the EU, is one of the regions where Trump's administration could be more proactive than Biden’s. This is evident from previous business visits by people close to Trump, such as his son Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and their business projects in Serbia and Albania. The connection between business and politics under Donald Trump will likely be more prominent than it was in the previous administration," Krstic told Kosovo Online.

He notes that Trump won the US presidential election because, as he says, he managed to increase his vote count by attracting those primarily dissatisfied with the current economic situation in America.

“Although objective indicators suggest that the American economy is doing well and growing, if we cumulatively consider the notably high inflation rate in recent times, citizens feel they aren’t living as well and that they had a better quality of life during Donald Trump’s time,” Krstic observes.

He believes this was the key issue that motivated citizens to turn out and vote for Trump, even if they had criticisms about other aspects of him.

Of course, he adds, other significant issues also contributed to Trump’s support among voters.

“One of these is border management and protection against mass immigration, which has overwhelmed America, especially in the last two years. Moderate, undecided citizens—who are neither highly conservative nor highly liberal—felt this deviated from the Republicans' idea of common sense: if you don’t have borders, you don’t have a country, and you can’t allow everyone to enter US territory,” the assistant professor explained.

He added that there were also numerous identity issues where Donald Trump won additional votes by insisting that school curricula shouldn’t be overly liberal and that too much funding shouldn’t be allocated to liberal projects.

“With a multitude of reasons, these three were the dominant ones that made the difference and allowed Trump to win with a solid margin of votes in his favor,” Krstic concluded.