Serwer: Beware, Trump is keen on dividing Kosovo, will offer it as a territory exchange with Serbia
Express newspaper
19/06/2025 9:47
Daniel Serwer, a professor at Johns Hopkins University in the United States, says that US President Donald Trump did not stop the outbreak of war between Kosovo and Serbia, as he wrote on Sunday in “Social Truth”, and according to him, “any effort he makes now could cause even more damage”, due to, as he says, his inclination “to divide Kosovo”.
While saying that “the Balkans are in turmoil because President Trump mentioned the region,” Serwer says the Trump Administration will offer the partition of Kosovo “as a territorial exchange.”
“His Balkan whisperer, Ric Grenell, thinks this is a great idea. He would offer it as a territorial swap. The Serb-majority north of Kosovo would go to Serbia, and the Albanian-majority municipalities in southern Serbia would go to Kosovo. Sounds nice, especially if you’re an ethnic nationalist. Trump and Grenell are committed ethnic nationalists of the white supremacist variety,” he writes.
But, Serwer says that “Serbia will not accept its division.”
“It prefers to keep all of southern Serbia, where a main route to Thessaloniki and the Mediterranean passes. That’s why Belgrade is doing its best to push Albanians away from there. This is a classic deceptive tactic: exchange is offered, division is taken. Prime Minister Kurti, or his successor, would do well not to allow any discussion of exchange on the agenda,” says Serwer.
He says that “even a fully qualified US president would have a lot to think about right now before dealing with the Balkans.”
“A perverted president like Trump can do nothing but take credit for things he didn’t do and promise more. But he is failing everywhere: Gaza, Iran, Ukraine, and trade are all in chaos. His lack of coherence is not healthy. Be careful what you wish for. My advice to those who think they need American help is this: don’t ask. Deal with it yourself.”
According to him, “neither Serbia nor Kosovo needs help from people like Ric Grenell or Donald Trump.”
“Dialogue in recent years has aimed to normalize relations between them without mutual recognition. This has failed. All political dialogue since 2013 has produced little or nothing.”
“The technical dialogue that preceded this effort, and that has continued in silence, has produced much more. Although underestimated at the time, a telephone code for Kosovo, mutual recognition of documents, regulation of electricity supply and payments, integrated border control – these are things that have a real impact on people. At this point, Belgrade and Pristina know each other well enough to proceed with technical issues even without EU mediation. If the political will exists, they should,” he writes.
Serwer says Belgrade “must find a way with Brussels to restart” its path towards membership.
“This should include as a priority the implementation of the agreement and the implementation annex that was supposedly reached in 2023. President Vučić refused to sign it, but the EU is including the commitments in the accession process. He would do well to implement them quietly.”
“Kosovo is still suffering under unjustified EU sanctions for actions that no one remembers,” writes Serwer.
“But they helped stabilize the situation in the north and demonstrated the professionalism of Pristina’s security forces in the face of Belgrade’s coordinated efforts to destabilize. Brussels has started the process of lifting sanctions. It must complete it as soon as possible,” he adds.