AMERICAN MINDS: TRUMP COULD GAIN A STRONG ALLY IN DODIK

WASHINGTON, SEPTEMBER 25 /SRNA/ - BiH is a place where US economic and strategic interests intersect, but US President Donald Trump could find a powerful ally in President Milorad Dodik, according to an article by Brian Kennedy and Joseph Schmitz titled BiH: What Is in the American People’s Interest?, published by American Minds.

The article states that President Trump’s “America First” foreign policy poses a simple question regarding every engagement abroad: What does it bring to the American people? The authors point out that a set of three events in July this year provides a threefold answer to this question when it comes to BiH — a Central European country created by the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the war in the Balkans and established two legal entities: Republika Srpska, whose population is predominantly Orthodox Serb, and the Federation of BiH, whose population is predominantly Muslim /officially known as Bosniaks/, with a significant minority of Roman Catholic Croats. “First, on July 1, 2026 — as we marked 250 years of independence from a tyrant named King George III — the unelected German ‘High Representative’ in BiH, Christian Schmidt, resigned. Just like George III, he enforced what our Declaration of July 4, 1776 referred to as ‘acts of pretended legislation,’” the report states. The article notes that the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolutionary War serves as a reminder that wars do happen and that security should never be taken for granted. “Third, on July 13, 2026, the leaders of two political parties in BiH — one representing Orthodox Serbs, SNSD, and the other representing Roman Catholic Croats, HDZ — essentially agreed in a joint public statement with the opinion of the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH of February 13, 2026, which states that ‘the High Representative in BiH has no constitutional authority to enact laws,’” the article states. The portal notes that, according to a media report, SNSD leader Milorad Dodik and HDZ BiH leader Dragan Čović said in Mostar that they agreed that all decisions imposed by the High Representatives should be annulled. “In the context of this unique joint statement by the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, the first encyclical by the American-born Pope, Humanity in its Greatness, Pope Leo XIV — highlights one of the keys to resolving the problems of 30 years of unsuccessful state-building in BiH: ‘The principle of subsidiarity encourages us to overcome every form of paternalistic governance of social life or governance based on a welfare system, and instead to promote a culture of shared responsibility in a state that values citizens’ initiative, and in which decisions are made at the level as close as possible to the people affected by those decisions,’” the article states. As for why BiH matters to the American people, the issue is US national security, because, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, two of the 19 terrorists who hijacked the planes on September 11, 2001, were Saudi Arabian nationals who had “traveled together to fight in BiH, as part of a group that went to the Balkans in 1995.” According to an article by George Cafiero titled In the Rearview Mirror: The Case of Iranian Influence in Bosnia, the Iranian government intervened during the war in BiH, allegedly to “stop the massacre.” Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati coordinated the provision of assistance to Bosniaks and justified the intervention in accordance with the Islamic Republic’s concept of defending the “mostazafin” /the oppressed/ around the world, from Palestine to South Africa. “Today, the three distinct peoples of BiH offer three strategic relationships waiting to be developed: Catholic Croats, fellow nationals of our NATO ally Croatia; Orthodox Serbs, who have repeatedly elected a leader leaning toward Trump, Milorad Dodik; and Muslim Bosniaks, whose prosperity is better secured through American trade and investment than through the patronage of Turkey, the Gulf states or Iran,” the article states. The portal says that a sovereign, self-governing and prosperous BiH would mean new markets for US energy and capital, new sources of strategic minerals essential to the American people, as well as one fewer hotspot for the recruitment of Islamist terrorists. “For almost three decades, this European country, made up of three distinct peoples, has not been governed by leaders elected by those peoples, but by an unelected foreign bureaucrat known as the High Representative — in the past five years, a former German politician — who applies the same model of unaccountable, top-down bureaucratic governance that has brought Europe economic stagnation, energy dependence, deindustrialization and the managed decline of the middle class,” the report states. According to the portal, the results are predictable, as the State Department’s 2025 Investment Climate Statement describes a country whose “complex and fragmented legal and regulatory framework, weak judiciary and political instability deter investors, while a single decision by the High Representative in 2005, freezing the disposition of ‘state property,’ blocked an estimated $15 billion in potential investment, an amount approaching half of the country’s GDP for this year.” The report states that US taxpayers have been funding this failed state-building experiment since 1995 and have the right to ask what they have gained from it and what it will bring to Americans in the future. According to the portal, BiH is a place where US economic and strategic interests intersect. According to Mining Weekly, Republika Srpska has one of the richest deposits of critical minerals in Europe — resources essential to the US industrial and defense base — over which Brussels and Beijing are already seeking to establish control. “Most importantly, these developments in BiH have opened the door for President Donald Trump to return the support he has received from President Milorad Dodik on multiple occasions; if he does so, America will gain a new friend and partner in Central Europe in BiH, amid our ongoing global struggle for critical strategic resources,” the report concludes.