Experts doubt the effect of Serbia’s spending on US lobbyists to burnish the country’s image in the eyes of Donald Trump.
Ana Curic
In Valcour, Serbia has bought the support of Mowers, who is described on the company’s website as a “top fundraiser” for the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee.
As for KARV Communications and BGR Governmental Affairs, according to mandatory submissions to US authorities, they both spent 2025 organising meetings between Serbian and US officials, sending press materials to media and trying to set up media interviews for Serbian officials.
In 2023, during the Biden presidency, KARV Communications tried to set up a meeting with Freedom House, a prominent democracy watchdog, though it is unclear whether any such meeting ever took place.
In March of that year, in its influential Freedom in the World report, Freedom House said the SNS had “steadily eroded political rights and civil liberties, putting pressure on independent media, the political opposition, and civil society organizations”. As previously reported by BIRN, lobbyists hired by the Serbian Chamber of Commerce also tried to lobby Freedom House back in 2020.
Freedom House did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Serbian Foreign Marko Djuric, who previously served as Serbia’s ambassador in Washington.
In 2024, the lobbyists reported reaching out to US officials, distributing invitations to embassy events and press releases promoting Belgrade’s position on a United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in May that year declaring July 11 the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica, when Bosnian Serb forces killed some 8,000 Bosniak men and boys after overrunning the UN safe haven.
In 2025, after Trump’s return to office, the lobbyists began reaching out to more conservative and right-wing media outlets, such as Breitbart.
BGR Government Affairs reported sending press releases to US media in which Serbian authorities denied using a sonic weapon on peaceful protesters on March 15 that year amid a wave of popular anger over the deaths of 16 people when an outdoor canopy at a newly renovated railway station collapsed in November 2024.
The email with the subject line ‘Serbia Denies Allegations of Illegal Sonic Weapon Use Against Protesters’ was sent to 19 journalists from various media outlets including The Washington Post, The New York Times, Reuters, Politico, and ABC News.
Representatives of KARV, BGR Government Affairs and Valcour did not respond to requests for comment.
Lobbying not ‘a magic wand’
