The decision to declare Trump’s son-in-law a strategic investor is more related to May 11th than to the U.S. elections
By Andi Bushati
In the recent open debate on how much our media tell the public the truth, it was very interesting to see how the decision to declare Donald Trump’s son-in-law an investor in Albania was portrayed, just a few days before he takes office at the White House. Some of the articles from those close to the Renaissance government presented this as a government decision. A few even more detailed, regarding formal facts, portrayed it as an act undertaken by the Strategic Investment Committee.
In fact, to be simple and truthful, it must be said that this is neither a consequence of the government’s developmental policies nor a result of studies to determine which businessmen meet the conditions to receive favors. This is an individual decision by Edi Rama, for his own personal reasons.
There is more than one argument to support this claim. First, Jared Kushner, just like Grenell, arrived in Albania in transit from Vučić’s Serbia. Just like Alabari, who was thrown in Durrës after the Belgrade waterfront project, just like Tony Blair, who serves as a lobbyist for both autocrats, and just like the same survey and campaign companies, the Albanian prime minister and the Serbian president use common channels to achieve their goals. Even the Zvërnec-Sazan project is closely tied to what Kushner and Grenell will build on the ruins of the former Ministry of Defense, bombed by NATO, in the center of the Serbian capital.
Thus, it is a hook that Vučić and Rama have used to get closer to the newly elected president. Rick Grenell, as the man responsible for negotiations over the division of Kosovo and a close friend of Vučić, simply served as the facilitator for this political deal.
But the story doesn’t end here. To protect the result agreed with Belgrade, the head of the government has also used local businessmen. According to McGonigal’s corruption scheme, their aim was clear: to instill in Ivanka, Jared, and others the idea that small Albania is a paradise where no one leaves with empty pockets.
There is no doubt that Edi Rama desperately needed this relationship to work, after the departure of a Democratic administration that embraced the line of politically massacring the opposition in Albania, especially after the horrific records of anti-Trump statements preserved in archives. Not coincidentally, the American Senate committee investigating conflicts of interest mentioned the expenditures in the private hotel of the billionaire president in Washington and the recent dealings with Kushner. The head of this committee, Ron Wyden, raised concerns that these could be attempts at direct influence on the Trump family from Albania and Serbia.
Naturally, the indications are obvious. But they become stronger when you look at the bigger picture. Just like in this case, Edi Rama has undertaken such personal ventures for the arrival of Afghans abandoned by the U.S. to the hands of the Taliban and for the Mujahideen, just as he contradicted himself when he said Albania wouldn’t serve as a refugee camp for rich countries and then handed sovereignty over to Giorgia Meloni.
Thus, it’s hard to have doubts that the latest decision of the Strategic Investment Committee is simply a personal game. It comes exactly now, when those beloved democratic allies in the U.S. are leaving power. It comes a few days before Donald Trump reclaims it.
But, as much as this decision seems connected to the November 5th elections and the inauguration of January 20th, paradoxically it has its roots in our May 11th challenge. Because there, the Albanians will have, almost as their only alternative, a man who, by offering crumbs from the homeland, will continue to rule even more brutally.
Source: Lapsi.al