From the Balkans to the South Caucasus: How Trump’s “peace deals” serve U.S. and Israeli interests

After brokering the peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan on August 8, U.S. President Donald Trump managed to portray himself as a “peacemaker”—at least, in the eyes of his supporters. It is a role he has been eager to claim on more than one occasion.

While Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev were signing the “Agreement on Establishment of Peace and Inter-State Relations” between their countries, Trump emphasized that he “prevented the war between Serbia and Kosovo.”

“Serbia and Kosovo—we had to stop something that was about to start. We did not like it at all and we saved a lot of lives,” the U.S. president said, referring to the “historic summit” between Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and then-Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti, held in Washington in September 2020 under Trump’s auspices. 

Previously, in July, he said that a war between Serbia and its breakaway province “was planned to happen.” 

“They were heading for a big war. I told them, if you clash—no more trade with the USA. And they told me that they might not clash after all,” Trump stated. 

In reality, there were no indications whatsoever that Belgrade and Pristina were preparing for war in 2020. Instead, they tried to reach a deal on a land swap, with Trump’s special envoy Richard Grenell acting as mediator.

The Kosovo war effectively ended in 1999, after NATO bombed Serbia and forced it to withdraw police and military forces from the province. Since then, the region has remained largely peaceful, despite Kosovo’s 2008 unilaterally declared independence—an act that Serbia, along with 109 countries, including both Armenia and Azerbaijan, refuses to recognize. 

The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan ended in 2020—excluding Azerbaijan’s 24-hour operation in 2023 that led to the de facto dismantling of the Republic of Artsakh. That action resembles Croatia’s 1995 Operation Storm, which resulted in the breakup of the Republic of Serbian Krajina—often compared to Nagorno-Karabakh for its ethnic composition, lack of recognition and eventual military defeat. In both cases, hundreds of thousands of Karabakh Armenians and Krajina Serbs were forced to leave their homes. Critics view their fate as a result of Belgrade’s betrayal of Krajina and Yerevan’s betrayal of Artsakh.

In the South Caucasus, as in the Balkans, large-scale wars are over, yet at the joint press conference with Aliyev and Pashinyan, Trump behaved as if they had just ended the conflict. Following the summit in Washington, the two leaders—while praising the U.S. president—signed a document that allows the United States (and potentially Israel) to strengthen its presence in the strategically important region.

If Yerevan builds its section of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), and Azerbaijan gets a passport-free passage through Armenian territory, Iran will be semi-encircled by NATO-member Turkey and Israel-friendly Azerbaijan. In a potential large-scale war between the Islamic Republic and the U.S.-backed Israeli state, the route could provide Israel and the United States with a decisive advantage over Tehran. 

Coincidentally or not, Israel was also the major beneficiary of the Trump-brokered 2020 Washington Agreement signed between Vučić and Hoti. Following the deal, Kosovo moved its embassy to Jerusalem, becoming the first Muslim-majority nation to do so. Moreover, both Belgrade and Pristina agreed to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

Before the “historic deal” in Washington, Israel was among the countries that did not recognize Kosovo. After the summit, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recognized Kosovo’s independence, reportedly under U.S. pressure. But that was not the end of humiliations for Serbia. 

A video of Vučić realizing he had not properly read what he signed at the White House—specifically, a commitment for Serbia to move its embassy to Jerusalem—went viral. A photograph of Vučić sitting in the Oval Office, looking like a naughty schoolboy summoned by headmaster Trump, perfectly illustrates Serbia’s position in the international arena—a defeated country whose leader signs documents without even reading them. 

Armenia’s situation is not much better. The concessions Pashinyan already made to Azerbaijan are similar to those Serbia made to Western-backed Kosovo. It is, therefore, no surprise that Belgrade welcomed the Washington deal between Aliyev and Pashinyan, praising Trump’s “significant role in facilitating this achievement.”

Interestingly, Pashinyan also appears to be using Vučić’s playbook not only in foreign policy but also in how he treats political opponents at home. One of Vučić’s first moves after coming to power in 2012 was to strengthen economic ties with the United Arab Emirates by signing “major investment deals” with Abu Dhabi. Since then, companies from the UAE have become major landowners in Serbia. According to reports, Pashinyan’s government has recently reached comparable deals with the UAE, which are expected to lead to a stronger Gulf state presence in Armenia’s economy. 

Still, unlike Vučić, Pashinyan is in an overall better position. His people, unlike the Serbs, have not been demonized for decades, nor has he faced public humiliation in Washington. However, the fact that he agreed to grant the United States exclusive development rights to the “Trump Corridor” land for 99 years clearly shows that it is Washington, rather than Yerevan, that benefits from the peace deal.