Meeting with Donald Trump Jr./ Rama's lobbyist's attempt fails for the second time

On Saturday evening, April 26, 2025, Donald Trump Jr. was having dinner with Aleksandar Vučić in Belgrade, as part of his visit to Southeast Europe.

A few weeks ago, while he was planning this visit, Donald Trump Jr. also planned to visit Tirana, where he would have dinner with Prime Minister Edi Rama.

This scheduling was insistently requested by Richard Grenell, an undeclared lobbyist for Rama and almost declared for Vučić.

Trump Jr.'s trip plans were modified when people close to President Trump's staff learned that Edi Rama was included in the agenda.

Today, Donald Trump Jr. continued meetings in Budapest, at a business conference, removing Tirana from the list of priorities.

The same actors in Washington who ruined Rama's opportunity to meet JD Vance in Munich continued their game by also burning Rama's opportunity to host President Trump's son at a special dinner, with the mediation of Richard Grenell.

However, it must be said that Mr. Grenell has not only failed in his efforts to help Edi Rama in Washington. He has also managed to provide strategic assistance to Rama.

Tirana was selected as the location for the international conference of American conservatives, CPAC, in April 2025 (two weeks before the elections). Mr. Grenell is a board member in the leadership core of this organization.

He fought hard to prevent this conference from taking place in Tirana before the elections, and he achieved his goal: the conference has been postponed to June.

President Trump and Elon Musk were expected to greet each other with a video message at this conference.

Mr. Grenell made sure that this event did not happen before the elections, as this would favor the opposition parties in Tirana, especially the Democratic Party.

Although Mr. Grenell does not have a direct contract with the Rama government, in the high ranks of American diplomacy he is listed as his lobbyist, and there are even concrete indications that suggest this.

It is precisely in Budapest, where Donald Trump Jr. is today, that it is suspected that Mr. Grenell may have connected interests with Mr. Rama.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Grenell was appointed a board member of the Hungarian company 4iG, which operates in Tirana through its subsidiary "One Telecommunications".

Mr. Grenell's contract with 4iG has not yet been made public, but some sources suggest that it is a payment that could reach up to $100,000 per month.

"We suspect that 4iG is serving as a proxy for the interests that link your prime minister in Albania to Mr. Grenell. The Tirana branch works quietly with a lobbyist like Grenell, while his payments are secured through a private contract, avoiding any direct implication with the government," a foreign diplomatic source told Hashtag.al.

But one of Mr. Grenell's most successful operations in the service of Mr. Rama is related to what is known in Albania as the "Tigra" energy ship scandal, which implicates Rama's important minister, Belinda Balluku, and former ambassador Yuri Kim. (Read here)

As this affair was taking shape in 2023, Mr. Grenell, who had connections with several senior opposition figures in Tirana, asked them as a matter of personal honor not to insist on this issue.

In fact, so far it does not appear that Mr. Grenell had any direct interest in this affair; rather, it seems that he has simulated an interest, to provide Edi Rama with the necessary peace of mind and to remove the spotlight from this scandal.

Ironically, while in 2023 Grenell and the Albanian opposition focused entirely on the "Rama–McGonigal" scandal, they were silently doing Edi Rama a huge favor with the Vlora ship affair, which the Albanian prime minister found very problematic.

It seems that Mr. Grenell and Edi Rama's government in Tirana have felt very challenged by the cooperation and contract signed between the largest opposition party in Albania with the lobbying firm "Continental Strategy LLC".

The company also employs the daughter of President Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, an iron-fisted lady who doesn't like Grenell at all. In the circle where Ms. Wiles operates, Mr. Grenell is described as an "unprincipled mercenary."

It is precisely this circle that Grenell and Rama fear the most, especially after Rama realized that his efforts in Israel, through intelligence channels, did not provide him with what he expected.

The Israelis did not confuse state cooperation with Rama's political and party interests and did not undertake to guarantee his access to the White House.

Media close to Rama have tried over the last 24 hours to present the opposition's lobbying contract with "Continental Strategy LLC" as a scandal, raising the question "where did the opposition find $6 million?".

But this is simply a narrative for public consumption, as in reality Edi Rama knows very well that there are two people in the game who are not playing to earn a few more cents, but are two of his personal opponents, who have unresolved scores with him and Grenell:

Fatmir Mediu in Tirana and Susie Wiles in Washington.

/Hashtag.al