Siniša Karan’s victory in the November 23 snap presidential election for Republika Srpska, one of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s constituent polities, reinforces the enduring grip of the former President Milorad Dodik. Declaring that his opponents had merely “got two Dodiks” this time, Dodik made clear that his influence remains undiminished. Dodik stepped down, following a court decision that required Dodik to pay a fine that spared him a prison sentence for actions undermining Bosnia and Herzegovina’s delicate order; yet the former president of Republika Srpska continues to loom large over the Bosnian-Serb entity’s political landscape despite being officially out of office.
Karan’s win came less than a month after U.S. President Donald J. Trump suddenly and surprisingly lifted U.S. sanctions on Dodik, which had been in place since early 2017. The move, just 12 days after four of Dodik’s allies in Republika Srpska were removed from the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, stunned many in the Western Balkans. This development seems to have established a more direct line between Washington and Dodik.
This recalibration raises pressing questions about the role of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić’s government. Though Belgrade has long criticized U.S. sanctions targeting Republika Srpska’s leadership, many in Serbia’s political circles now think Dodik effectively sold out Banja Luka’s closest ally, Belgrade, to secure an understanding with the United States at Serbia’s expense.
To say that 2025 has tested Vučić’s government would be an understatement. As political polarization deepens and public discontent swells over corruption scandals and environmental threats, the once-delicate East–West balance of Serbia’s foreign policy has been faltering. Accused of betrayal by Moscow for supplying arms to Kiev via Western countries while facing heightened pressure from the United States and the European Union over its ties to Russia, Belgrade now finds itself squeezed from both sides almost four years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Amid these converging crises, Vučić’s primary focus has been on shoring up his government’s position at home, even as he tries to prevent the country’s geopolitical tightrope from snapping. The result is leadership consumed by domestic survival while navigating an increasingly unforgiving international landscape.
These internal pressures heightened Belgrade’s hopes that the second Trump administration would provide Serbia’s government with relief. But this hope has so far proven misplaced. What Vučić and his inner circle had optimistically heralded as the start of a new era in Serbia-U.S. relations has instead revealed itself to be an unexpectedly rocky chapter. Far from finding easy rapport in Washington, Serbian officials have struggled to gain meaningful traction with Trump’s team, leaving expectations unfulfilled and strategic hopes adrift.
As winter approaches, one problem looms especially large: the status of Pančevo, Serbia’s sole oil refinery. U.S. sanctions on Serbia’s Oil Industry (Naftna Industrija Srbije, NIS), which has been majority-owned by Russia since 2008, recently forced Pančevo to suspend operations after Belgrade failed to secure an operating license from Washington. Now energy security constitutes a major front in an already mounting list of challenges facing Belgrade.
The refinery crisis only compounded a broader sense in Belgrade that Washington has become increasingly difficult to manage. It is no secret that officials in Vučić’s government were not pleased with the recent lifting of U.S. sanctions on Dodik and his Bosnian-Serb associates. The main reason has to do with the fact that this deal between Trump’s administration and Dodik was done autonomously from Belgrade.
“Both Vučić and Dodik made a bet on Donald Trump, expecting that they will build a stronger relationship with his administration. As it turned out, Dodik’s bet paid off by having sanctions against him lifted,” explained Vuk Vuksanović, a senior researcher at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, in an interview with The American Conservative. He noted that Serbia, of all Western Balkan countries, was in August hit with the stiffest tariffs at 35 percent.
Vuksanović observed that Vučić has been unable to form any coherent policy toward the second Trump administration. He added that it remains unclear why the planned May meeting between the Serbian and American presidents in Mar-a-Lago, Florida was cancelled under “dubious circumstances,” even if Vučić’s health was the official reason.
Since 2012, Belgrade routinely played a role in calming the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina through its leverage over Republika Srpska and, more specifically, over Dodik as an individual Bosnian-Serb leader. This helped Serbia present itself to the United States and EU members as a stabilizing player in the Western Balkans that Washington and European capitals had to work with in order to preserve the balance established by the 1995 Dayton Accords.
“During previous U.S. administrations, Vučić had been the Serbian leader that Washington dealt with. Indeed, Vučić marketed himself to the West as someone who could ‘keep a lid on Dodik’ or ‘keep Dodik under control.’ This was one of his big selling points, integral to depicting himself as a standard bearer of regional stability,” Lily Lynch, a journalist and Balkan expert, told TAC.
“However, with Dodik going directly to the Americans himself, and making real inroads with some of Trump’s inner circle, including people like Laura Loomer, Vučić appears to have been cut out. This eliminates one of Vučić’s main selling points to the West,” she added.
This loss of diplomatic relevance helps explain why Belgrade reacted angrily to the Trump administration’s decision to lift the sanctions. Vučić’s media surrogates quickly launched coordinated attacks on Dodik; the most prominent allegation claimed that Dodik had agreed to support Bosnia and Herzegovina’s entry into NATO, which would clearly be at odds with the former Republika Srpska president’s longstanding and unwavering opposition to Bosnian membership in the transatlantic military alliance.
Nevertheless, as Lynch noted, it’s unclear whether this claim about the Bosnian path toward NATO membership is accurate. “In fact, we don’t really know any details of the deal Dodik made with the U.S. to have these sanctions lifted—but the fact that the reaction from Belgrade was so swift and strong really indicates that they were unhappy with it,” she explained to TAC.
Nonetheless, despite the extent to which Vučić’s government is displeased with the deal that Dodik and his inner circle reached with Trump, Belgrade stands to gain in some respects. This mostly concerns Serbia’s financial interests. The removal of sanctions on Dodik will “relieve a certain amount of pressure from Belgrade in an economic sense because there was unconfirmed information that actually throughout this crisis Belgrade was financially helping Republika Srpska to sustain the isolation,” commented Igor Novaković, senior associate at the International and Security Affairs Centre, ISAC Fund, in an interview with TAC. He added that “now with all of this funding again at the disposal of officials in Republika Srpska, Belgrade will probably not be forced to step in again.”
As much as Serbia’s government must contend with the loss of influence as an intermediary between Washington and Banja Luka, Belgrade will maintain its relationship with the U.S. albeit with bilateral affairs undergoing various strains. The Trump administration’s decision to lift the sanctions on Dodik and others in Republika Srpska is one of many factors—and far from the most significant one—impacting Serbia-U.S. bilateral affairs. There are other cards that the leadership in Belgrade can play to curry favor with this highly transactional White House, which takes a mostly business-first approach to the Western Balkans, particularly when it comes to the Trump family’s interests in Serbia and Albania.
“To secure Trump’s support, Vučić will likely have to continue making concessions to Washington. His decision to allow the construction of the Trump Tower in Belgrade on the ruins of the Army Headquarters, which was bombed by NATO in 1999, seems to be an attempt to gain Trump’s backing amid ongoing protests and Serbia’s gradual shift away from Russia,” Nikola Miković, a Belgrade-based geopolitical analyst, told TAC.
On balance, the lifting of U.S. sanctions on Dodik and his allies in Banja Luka has left Belgrade more anxious than empowered. For years, Vučić skillfully leveraged his influence over Republika Srpska as a diplomatic asset, presenting himself as an indispensable interlocutor for Western powers who sought to preserve Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Daytonian equilibrium. Now, Dodik proving his ability to bypass Vučić and secure a direct channel to the Trump administration undermines Belgrade’s carefully cultivated role, unsettling Serbia at a moment when the country’s geopolitical balance is already under immense strain.
As Serbia confronts rising domestic unrest, fraying international partnerships, and deepening energy vulnerabilities, the Trump administration’s sudden moves vis-à-vis Dodik underscore a broader reality: Belgrade’s margin for maneuver is narrowing, and its long-favored strategy of controlled influence in the former Yugoslav space may be entering a far more unpredictable phase.
Read the full article here
