For years, Dodik has built friendships with her party; two members of the National Rally even joined Dodik in the VIP box in 2022 to watch a parade celebrating the Day of Republika Srpska, a holiday declared unconstitutional by Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Constitutional Court.

When the right-wingers did not maintain their advantage in the second round of the French, Dodik decided to congratulate French President Emmanuel Macron instead.

During the summer, Dodik personally travelled to Paris to build links with French parliamentarians. Meanwhile, his biggest political ally, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic recently closed a deal with Macron to purchase 12 French airplanes for around 2.7 billion euros.

Along with the other alliances that Dodik has already forged, a favourable attitude from France would reduce European pressure on him over his secessionist stances that have seen him make multiple threats to pull Republika Srpska out of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Dodik is also now looking to Washington ahead of the US presidential elections in November. Late last year, he said he was sorry for not having declared the independence of Republika Srpska when Donald Trump won his first presidential term in 2016.

“But if Trump wins again, I think I would not hesitate,” he told Serbia’s TV Prva.

Dodik has been under US sanctions for years. He had ridiculed them until recently, when banks began closing the bank accounts of both individuals and companies in Republika Srpska. No solution was found to stop the account closure, so several companies shut down.

For this reason, over the past few weeks, Dodik and those surrounding him have been openly saying they are hoping for Trump’s victory, claiming that he would lift the American sanctions.

In Belgrade, officials are already investing in friendship with Trump. It was recently announced that the Yugoslav People’s Army General Staff building in Belgrade, which NATO forces destroyed while bombing Serbia in 1999, could be turned into a new complex under a consortium involving Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

“Trump is not a man who will think much about this in terms of values,” said Serbian MP Nebojsa Novakovic.

“If there’s an interest [under a possible Trump administration] in securing a flow of money or capital from this area, that man [Dodik] will get off the sanctions list, and in this sense, compatible interests exist,” he added.

When Trump was president last time, he did not remove Dodik’s name from the sanctions list, but this time it might be different, said Kurt Bassuener, founder of and associate at the Democratisation Policy Council think-tank.

“Bosnia and Herzegovina did well when Trump was the president for the first time. We have reasons to believe, bearing in mind the favourable attitude towards Vucic, that there would be understanding for the idea that Bosnia and Herzegovina is a failed and impossible state, and that it might need to be divided,” said Bassuener.

Such a favourable attitude, in Bassuener’s opinion, can be bought, and Vucic knows how to do it.

A key role in the deal to buy the Yugoslav People’s Army General Staff building in Belgrade could be played by Richard Grenell, the former US ambassador to Berlin under Trump, who was also his envoy for dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo.

“[Grenell] has never left the Balkans. He is one of the agreement mediators for Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law,” said Bassuener.

Analysts in the US believe that, if Trump wins, Grenell would be given a significant position by his administration.

Meanwhile, Dodik has been trying to get closer to people in Trump’s circle. In mid-August, he boasted about having attended a rally in support of Trump in Vienna. Grenell also attended the rally.

Autocratic leaders worldwide are also hoping for Trump’s victory. Belgrade-based journalist Slobodan Georgiev argued that Russian President Vladimir Putin favours Trump.

“Why is Trump so dear to Russia? Because he says, ‘We want to close ourselves off, we want to build a wall’, and Russia will say, ‘Go ahead, please, so we don’t see you around here, so we can do whatever we want,’” said Georgiev.

Trump treats democratic countries as executors of American will, negotiating only with those who are American enemies or American competitors, said Bozo Kovacevic, a former Croatian ambassador to Moscow.

“For that reason, Putin reckons that Trump is a better president, from the point of view of the Russian Federation, because Russia can negotiate with him, not expecting Trump to make demands that concern Russia’s internal policy as a precondition for reaching any agreements,” Kovacevic explained.

Hungary is a key ally of Serbia and Republika Srpska. But more European states now have favourable attitudes towards Belgrade and Banja Luka, Obrad Kesic, head of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s mission to the European Union, said in July, RTRS reported.

Kesic emphasised the importance of the alliance with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, as well as support from Slovakia, but he also cited the favourable attitude of French politicians and the partnership with Austria.

Kesic said that he was hoping for a continuation of the trend towards growing sovereigntist and anti-globalist forces in Europe.

Dodik is trying to link up with as many of them as possible, said Zagreb-based political analyst Denis Avdagic, who has followed Dodik and Vucic’s political moves for years.

“Such link-ups guarantee him that he will not come under European Union sanctions. Should that happen, he would be completely cut off, because Vucic himself would very probably turn his back on him after that,” Avdagic suggested.

All these politicians have something that unites them – they have a vision of a different kind of Europe, said Borislav Stefanovic, vice-president of the Party of Freedom and Justice in Serbia.

“Vucic does not say it publicly, but he dreams of a new Europe with populist autocratic leaders who would completely destroy [people’s] sense of personal security, economic and social progress, and put everything on the level of identity politics,” Stefanovic said.

MP Novakovic said he resents the Serbian authorities “for knowing what they are involved in, for knowing that the world might become a drastically different place, a worse place in five years should their current partners – who have still not taken the highest positions possible – achieve enormous success [in future elections]”.

Dodik and Vucic did not respond to requests for interviews.