Since the Donald Trump administration took office in January 2025, observers in the Western Balkans and beyond have wondered whether American policy toward the region of southeastern Europe will change. For decades, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, American strategy has focused on supporting the region’s future membership in the European Union and NATO, as well as investing in strengthening democratic governance, energy independence, and regional market integration. While American engagement has waned since its peak in the 1990s—as Washington has assumed a role that complements European leadership, except in the areas of security and defense—that strategic anchor has remained consistent.
Trump’s second term has disrupted some of these fundamental principles. There is some policy continuity in the US legislature, as evidenced by the bipartisan Western Balkans Democracy and Prosperity Act, and in the Pentagon, which has not changed the US force deployment in the region. However, the State Department has taken a different approach, in line with broader global changes. These are clearly articulated in a recent State Department report to Congress, which effectively defines the US goal as “stability… as a means to achieve economic cooperation.”
As widely expected, democracy promotion and state-building, as well as EU accession and NATO expansion, have been abandoned. At the operational level, the US no longer coordinates with the Europeans through the Quintet format – a grouping of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. It also no longer actively intervenes in the management of day-to-day Balkan affairs, shifting the American approach towards “empowering local actors to address their own challenges”.
This more restrained American approach to the region, coupled with the fact that the State Department does not yet have a Senate-confirmed ambassador there, has created the impression that there is no clear direction or focus for the region. However, many indicators point to significant American engagement, albeit within a different strategic framework. The central focus of the United States today appears to be on energy and economic infrastructure projects, and this over a broader geographic scope. In the administration’s thinking, the Western Balkans are increasingly seen as part of a broader space of southern, central, and eastern Europe, for which Trump administration energy officials have heralded “the opening of a new era of cooperation.”
Russian energy is leaving, American energy is coming.
Under Trump, energy dominance has become a strategic doctrine of American foreign and security policy. The US effort to replace Russia as the dominant exporter of natural gas to Europe has apparently become the main framework through which Washington views its engagement and partnerships in the Balkans. The region needs reliable energy for its own needs, but it can also serve as an entry and transit point for US liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Central and Eastern Europe. Reliable energy supplies are also needed to encourage US private investment in the region, such as the recently announced multi-billion dollar artificial intelligence center in Croatia. The Trump administration has made various financial instruments available to advance the goal of reliable energy supplies, including the US Export-Import Bank and the International Development Finance Corporation to support energy infrastructure projects from Turkey to Poland and Slovakia.
One of the strategic long-term projects in the Balkans is the Vertical Gas Corridor, which aims to turn Greek ports and LNG terminals, as well as the Trans-Balkan Pipeline, into a hub for the regasification of US LNG and its distribution northward to at least seven countries, with the hope of eventually reaching Ukraine. Once completed, the corridor would provide an alternative to pipelines carrying Russian gas. US energy companies ExxonMobil and Chevron have also signed agreements with Greece in recent months to explore new natural gas deposits near the Ionian Sea and Crete. In April, Albania signed a 20-year, $6 billion framework agreement with US company Venture Global and Greek company Aktor to import US LNG, initially via Greece, with plans to later turn the southern Albanian port of Vlora into an import hub and build a new gas-fired power plant there.
Further north, Croatia’s LNG terminal on Krk has become another strategic entry point for US LNG into the region. The Trump administration is working with authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to develop the Southern Gas Interconnection from Krk to BiH, which would offer the country an alternative to its dependence on Russian gas via Serbia.
Serbia, North Macedonia, and Kosovo are expected to be integrated into US energy corridors. The State Department report, for example, lists several priority projects, including the modernization of Kosovo’s coal-fired power plants. Serbia is already diversifying its gas supply sources, using an alternative route through Greece and Bulgaria. It has also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the US, while Washington is simultaneously trying to force Russia’s Gazprom to sell a controlling stake in Serbia’s energy company NIS.
In conflict with the EU?
The Trump administration clearly views this strategy through the prism of benefits for the US economy and industry. However, it is also a source of leverage for achieving geopolitical goals, such as ensuring alignment with US and NATO interests, deterring competitors, and creating incentives for regional cooperation. This approach has been on full display in Bosnia and Herzegovina over the past year, where a direct “favor-for-favor” arrangement appeared to have emerged between the US and Milorad Dodik, a pro-Russian actor and secessionist disruptor. The US lifted sanctions on Dodik almost simultaneously with legislative progress on the Southern Gas Interconnection project in Bosnia and Herzegovina. By switching from Russian gas to US LNG, the White House is clearly assuming that Dodik’s political alignment will follow suit.
From a security perspective, the greater US economic presence in the region and the removal of Russian instruments of coercion create a clear interest for Washington to remain engaged in defending the regional order it has helped shape. In principle, this is a positive development for regional security, as it could weaken the position of revisionist actors such as Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić in their efforts to pursue a geopolitics of balancing between the West and Russia. In this sense, it was encouraging that the key message of the recent visit to Belgrade by US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker was that Serbia should align its strategic direction with the West - an important point of continuity in US policy under the Trump administration.
However, there is a risk that this strategy could conflict with EU accession, a key objective for the region. Large-scale investments in gas are at odds with the EU’s broader green agenda, which envisages a gradual phasing out of gas, leaving the Western Balkan candidates – who must meet specific criteria and requirements to join the EU – caught between two fires: a division between the US and the EU, but also within the EU itself, on the issue. Several EU members, including Greece and Croatia, are part of US LNG corridors and have tried to push Brussels to ease restrictions on gas projects, but how successful they will be remains to be seen.
Second, this strategy potentially undermines regional governance, as most investments are structured through non-transparent interstate agreements and special laws that grant privileged access to pre-determined US companies – as illustrated by EU concerns over lex specialis arrangements in BiH. Such uncompetitive and non-transparent deals risk unjustified financial costs for the region’s citizens and benefit the financial networks of regional strongmen who undermine democracy and the region’s European path.
It is difficult to assess how far this US energy agenda will advance in the Western Balkans and what it will achieve during Trump’s term. Much of what has happened so far has been the signing of framework agreements and the launching of legislative processes that will take time to translate into concrete results. Western Balkan leaders are also well-versed in playing the transactional deal card, using complex procedures to buy time and keep all options open. Faced with this new strategy for the region, some Western Balkan leaders may try to curry favor with the Trump administration and Trump-friendly energy companies for short-term political gain, aware that changing political currents in the US could reshape American foreign policy priorities. However, it can be assumed that for now, the “Trump Balkan Doctrine” acts as a deterrent to short-term security threats, but does not solve many long-term ills and further complicates the already difficult path to EU accession.
The author is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's European Center.
atlanticcouncil.org
Prepared by: A. Š.
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