Often, American analysts and journalists fall into the trap of assuming that every event revolves around American politics.
The case of Albania is the freshest example of this harmful tendency.
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At the end of May, protests erupted in Zvërnec, Albania, against plans by Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, to turn an ecologically fragile area into a multi-billion-dollar luxury resort.
According to the Washington Examiner, Kushner’s project was just one of the sparks that ignited the revolt. Another factor was Alex Soros’s closeness to Prime Minister Edi Rama to secure permits for similar investments.
The protests were also influenced by the persecution of the Greek minority living on the Albanian Riviera. On May 12, 2023, police ordered by Rama arrested Fredi Beleri, a candidate of Greek origin for the municipality of Himara, on the pretext that he had spent about $100 improperly during the campaign.
Albanians clearly saw the farce: Rama wanted to ensure his own people’s victory to finalize his real estate deals. In this context, Kushner’s development was a symptom, not the cause.
Although Albania may have disappeared from the main headlines of Western media, the protests have continued to strengthen. Recent visitors to the country report an unstable atmosphere and say that impatience with Rama’s personal enrichment has erupted to a peak. Now, Albanians no longer speak of Kushner or the US, but of the “Flamingo Revolution”—their version of the color revolutions that freed many Eastern European states from dictatorial regimes.
Of course, Albania is officially not a communist state and, according to the State Department, enjoys a vibrant democracy. Nevertheless, Albanian citizens dispute this picture. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, they enthusiastically embraced democracy and the country became the most pro-American nation in Europe, perhaps even in the world.
Then the State Department and USAID intervened, helping to create the Special Structure against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK). To understand the consequences, it is enough to imagine if Al Capone had taken control of the FBI before it arrested him and his criminal organization in the 1930s. Similarly, Edi Rama, the leader of the Socialist Party, captured SPAK and turned it into a tool to strike anyone who threatened his power: former Prime Minister Sali Berisha, former Defense Minister Fatmir Mediu, former Deputy Prime Minister Arben Ahmetaj, Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj, and many other figures.
The goal was never to clean up governance. While SPAK was prosecuting anyone who criticized Rama, he simultaneously intensified involvement in real estate schemes and in blatant money laundering for drug cartels. The mechanism for this was the legalization of marijuana cultivation. As soon as the cannabis plantations flourished, the trafficking of cocaine from Latin America and West Africa, as well as opium trafficking from Afghanistan and Turkey, also expanded immediately. The Italian coast guard regularly seizes cocaine shipments heading to Albania; it is ironic that the coast guard under Rama’s orders fails to do so.
In parallel, Rama has openly adhered to the playbook of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. This is not a coincidence: a former associate of Rama who was present during a meeting between the two leaders testified that Erdoğan gave the Albanian prime minister a crash course on destroying the democratic system, targeting the opposition and winning the support of American diplomats. Erdoğan had consolidated power by taking control of the tax inspection body, Turkey’s equivalent of SPAK. He turned former American diplomats and attachés into business partners or, at best, supported them with donations for their new roles in think tanks. It seems Rama is doing the same. Like Erdoğan, he distributes favors through real estate concessions and development projects.
The State Department has already acknowledged its mistake; it has quietly removed Berisha from the visa blacklist, thereby recognizing that the accusations against him were political, not factual.
Trump’s opponents portray him as an anti-Midas, a figure who turns everything he touches into lead.
However, in the field of foreign policy, their own anti-Trump obsession syndrome (known as Trump derangement syndrome) can prove just as destructive.
In the Albanian case, the narrow focus on Kushner blinds politicians to deeper problems: the appropriation of American resources, the growth of organized crime and drug trafficking under Rama’s regime, as well as questions raised about the responsibility of some former American ambassadors, who unreservedly aligned themselves with Rama.
