The US is strong and has its own interests, but the only Serb interest in the region should be to avoid the frontal attack from the US geostrategic interest, Bosnian Serb leader and tripartite Presidency member Milorad Dodik said in Serbia.

“We’ve had the misfortune to find ourselves under attack by the Clinton administration when he (President Bill Clinton) wanted to build his career and when the US took the Muslim and Croat side (during the 1992 – 1995 Bosnian war),” Dodik said.

He added he never wanted any trouble with the US and that he never interfered into their geostrategic interests in the Middle East or elsewhere, but noted that he has the right to speak out even if the US does not like what he has to say.

According to him, it was only realistic to expect that Donald Trump’s election would bring more change, but that the myth of an all-powerful US President has been destroyed. Trump’s case proves that there is a ‘deep state’ within the US which prevents him from playing the role of President.

Bosnia’s Presidency Chairman said that he expected more from Trump, perhaps out of some political misconception, but also out of his desire to change something. In his opinion, it is not the Trump administration that deals with Serbs and Bosnia but some remains of the previous administration.

In any case, he concluded, powerful America must be respected.

The US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) introduced sanctions on Dodik in January 2017. Then-Acting OFAC Director John E. Smith said Dodik posed a “significant threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina”.