Return to the Balkans - After Trump’s defeat,
Grenell returned to the Balkans in November 2021 — days after dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago — amid renewed tensions between Serbia and Kosovo. Trump released a statement calling Grenell “My Envoy” and touting their 2020 economic deal in the region as “historic.”
Grenell criticized U.S. policy during his trip, and Kosovo’s president met with senior Biden administration officials in Washington that same month.
On his repeated trips to Kosovo and Serbia, he has used his stature in the region to boost Trump’s allies, to denigrate Biden’s efforts at negotiating a new peace deal, and push for private developments.
In Serbia, Grenell is often greeted as a quasi-official, reflecting a perception that he speaks for Trump and could play an important role in a future administration. “He is undoubtedly Serbia’s friend,” Serbia’s ambassador to Washington, Marko Duric, said in an interview last year. “He was while he had the official post, and has remained so today. Everyone in Serbia appreciates that very much.”
At times, that affinity has brought him close to officials tied to the Kremlin. Grenell partied at a cabaret club in Belgrade in 2021 with Serbia’s finance minister, a close ally of President Aleksandar Vucic, who has faced scrutiny in the United States for his authoritarian leanings and connections to Russia.
Grenell’s deep Balkan ties helped pave the way for the estimated $1 billion in real estate projects he is now pursuing with Kushner’s investment firm, Affinity Partners, including a luxury hotel and offices in downtown Belgrade and a resort on an island off the Albanian coast.
“I was ecstatic to be able to get Jared and Affinity to look at the project and invest in it,” Grenell said in the recent Albanian television interview, adding that he expected the deal to attract “a flood of investment.”
A Turkish offer
In the fall of 2023, Sweden’s drive to enter NATO was being held up by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose erosion of civil liberties and ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin had badly strained his ties to the United States. In Congress, some key lawmakers were demanding a commitment from Turkey before ratifying the sale of $20 billion in U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets.
Amid those tense negotiations, Grenell, a fierce critic of NATO and the Biden administration’s foreign policies made a startling offer: a meeting between Trump and Erdogan, who was coming to New York City for the United Nations General Assembly, according to the two people close to the former president.
Grenell proposed a Sept. 12 meeting, according to one of the people familiar with the request. Grenell had long opposed Sweden joining NATO, skeptical that it would meet the alliance’s benchmark of spending at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.
It’s not clear how Grenell proposed to broker the meeting, or whom he was representing.
But the idea alarmed the Trump confidants, who were concerned about the location and security risks of Erdogan's meeting with the former president. Ultimately, Trump decided against it, according to the two people.
Halil Mutlu, Erdogan’s cousin and the head of his political party’s operations in the United States, said he was not aware of the proposed meeting and that Grenell was not working for his organization.
A review of Grenell’s public statements shows that he has pulled back on his criticism of Erdogan. In 2016, Grenell complained that Erdogan was “too close to Islamists,” and as recently as June 2022 he said the Turkish president “views dissenting voices as terrorists.” But in a May 2023 podcast, Grenell argued that Western media unfairly demonized Erdogan in a complicated political climate. “He’s standing up for Turkey,” he said.
In January, the Turkish parliament voted in favor of Sweden joining NATO. Earlier this month, when Biden invited the Swedish prime minister to the State of the Union address to celebrate NATO’s expansion, Grenell mocked the foreign leader for applauding the American president.
