Page 52 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine April 2025

52 Opinion bne April 2025
Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik celebrates Donald Trump's US election victory in a red MAGA cap.
Being a Trump fan isn’t enough to get US support
Clare Nuttall in Glasgow
In the 50 days since Donald Trump’s inauguration for
his second term as US president, there have been some clear winners. Russian President Vladimir Putin is no doubt delighted not just at Trump’s withdrawal of support for Ukraine and verbal lashing of its President Volodymyr Zelen- skiy, but more broadly at the upending of the international order and the US’ rupture of ties with its traditional allies.
Elsewhere in Emerging Europe, certain right-wing leaders have also fared well. Having refused to endorse a joint EU statement on continued support for Ukraine at a March 6 summit, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced that Budapest is in talks on an economic cooperation package with the new US administration.
There has been rhetorical backing for other politicians in the region. Billionaire Trump backer and head of the newly created US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Elon Musk has fervently voiced support on social media for far-right, pro-Russian Romanian politician Calin Georgescu, who was recently barred from running in the May presidential election.
In Poland, Musk insulted Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, calling him a “small man” in a dispute over Ukraine’s use of the
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Starlink satellite system, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio piling on in comments warmly greeted by Sikorski’s political opponents in the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.
Yet not all nationalist leaders in Emerging Europe who might have anticipated favourable treatment from the new US administration have seen their expectations fulfilled.
In Bosnia & Herzegovina, Milorad Dodik, president of the country’s Serb entity, Republika Srpska, has escalated his push for secession after being sentenced by a Bosnian court for defying the international community’s high representative. His party, Repub- lika Srpska’s ruling SNSD, responded by passing laws banning Bosnian state bodies including the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council, the Prosecutor's Office and the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) from operating in the Serb entity.
Before Trump’s return to power, speculation was rife that his presidency would embolden Serb nationalists, as he was seen in the region as sympathetic towards both Russia and Serbia. That, as argued in a 2024 paper from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), threatened to embolden Dodik in his dealings with the Bosnian central government as well as the Serbian government in its dealings with Kosovo.