On the evening of Saturday, April 26, 2025, Donald Trump Jr. was dining with Aleksandar Vučić in Belgrade, as part of his visit to Southeastern Europe.
Several weeks earlier, while planning this trip, Trump Jr. had also scheduled a visit to Tirana, where he was expected to have dinner with Prime Minister Edi Rama.
This arrangement was pushed insistently by Richard Grenell, an undeclared lobbyist for Rama and a nearly official lobbyist for Vučić.
Trump Jr.‘s travel plans were altered when members of President Trump’s close circle learned that Edi Rama was included in the schedule.
Today, Donald Trump Jr. continued his meetings in Budapest at a business conference, having removed Tirana from his list of priorities.
The same actors in Washington who previously thwarted Rama’s opportunity to meet J.D. Vance in Munich, continued their efforts by also blocking Rama’s chance to host the President’s son at a special dinner brokered by Richard Grenell.
However, it must be noted that Mr. Grenell has not experienced only failures in his attempts to assist Edi Rama in Washington. He has managed to secure some strategic advantages for Rama.
Tirana had initially been selected as the host city for the international Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in April 2025, just two weeks before Albania’s elections. Mr. Grenell, who sits on the board of CPAC’s leadership, fought vigorously to ensure the conference would not take place in Tirana before the elections — and succeeded. The event has been postponed until June.
President Trump and Elon Musk were expected to address the conference via video message.
Mr. Grenell made sure the event would not occur before the elections, understanding well that such a high-profile gathering would have boosted the Albanian opposition, particularly the Democratic Party.
Although Mr. Grenell does not hold an official contract with Rama’s government, within high circles of American diplomacy, he is cataloged as one of Rama’s lobbyists, with concrete indications supporting this classification.
Coincidentally, in Budapest — where Donald Trump Jr. is currently located — it is suspected that Mr. Grenell may have formalized ties of interest with Mr. Rama.
A few weeks ago, Mr. Grenell was appointed to the board of the Hungarian company 4iG, which operates in Tirana through its subsidiary “One Telecommunications.”
The details of Mr. Grenell’s contract with 4iG have not yet been made public, but some sources suggest he could be receiving up to $100,000 per month.
“We suspect that 4iG is serving as a proxy for the interests connecting your Prime Minister in Albania with Mr. Grenell. The Tirana subsidiary operates smoothly with a lobbyist like Grenell, while his payments are neatly covered through a private contractual relationship, avoiding direct government entanglement,” a foreign diplomatic source told Hashtag.al.
One of Mr. Grenell’s most successful operations on behalf of Mr. Rama, however, is tied to what is known in Albania as the “Tigrat Energy Ships Scandal,” involving Rama’s key minister Belinda Balluku and former U.S. Ambassador Yuri Kim. (Read more here)
While this scandal was taking shape in 2023, Mr. Grenell, who maintained ties with senior opposition figures in Tirana, personally asked them to refrain from pressing further into the matter.
To date, there is no evidence that Mr. Grenell held any direct interests in the scandal; it is more likely he pretended to in order to provide Prime Minister Rama with necessary breathing space and divert attention away from the affair.
Ironically, while in 2023 Grenell and the Albanian opposition intensely focused on the “Rama–McGonigal” scandal, they were simultaneously and unknowingly doing Rama a colossal favor by defusing the Vlora ship scandal, which posed a much greater threat to him.
It seems Mr. Grenell and Edi Rama’s government in Tirana have felt particularly challenged by the recent cooperation and lobbying contract established between Albania’s main opposition party and the American firm “Continental Strategy LLC.”
Among Continental Strategy’s personnel is the daughter of Susie Wiles, a powerful figure who serves as Chief of Staff to President Trump and who is known to deeply dislike Grenell. In Wiles’ political circle, Grenell is referred to as a “mercenary without principles.”
It is precisely this network that both Grenell and Rama fear, particularly after realizing that their attempts to leverage contacts in Israel did not bear fruit.
Israeli officials, distinguishing between state cooperation and partisan interests, refused to secure Rama privileged access to the White House.
In the past 24 hours, media outlets aligned with Rama have tried to portray the opposition’s lobbying contract with “Continental Strategy LLC” as a scandal, questioning how the opposition allegedly raised $6 million.
But this is merely a narrative crafted for public consumption. In reality, Edi Rama is well aware that two key figures are now playing not for financial gain, but because of long-standing unresolved conflicts with both him and Grenell:
Fatmir Mediu in Tirana, and Susie Wiles in Washington.
— Hashtag.al
