Serbia and Georgia aren’t our friends — They’re authoritarian regimes courting Trump

When autocrats seek legitimacy, they often travel in pairs. Such was the case when Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic traveled to Tbilisi in June. While this was the first visit by a Serbian head of state to Georgia, their two regimes already have much in common. They are both well practiced in the balancing act of courting Washington while hollowing out their democratic institutions and cozying up to America’s enemies.

With friends like Serbia and Georgia, Washington should spend less time offering concessions and more time asking whose side they are really on.

At a joint press conference, Vucic praised Georgia’s 9.3% GDP growth as a model Europe should envy. Calling Georgians a “brotherly Orthodox nation,” he announced plans to finalize a free-trade deal by autumn and to open a new Serbian Embassy in Tbilisi. In turn, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze praised Vucic as an “outstanding leader” in a world experiencing “a shortage of leaders.” 

Their mutual admiration was hardly surprising. Serbia and Georgia are not just partners; they are two peas in a pod.

Both Vucic and Georgia’s ruling party, ironically named Georgian Dream, came to power in the 2010s. They have since dismantled much of the democratic progress their countries made after breaking free of authoritarian rule in the decades prior.

In 2024, Georgian Dream passed a Russian-style “foreign agent” law cracking down on independent media and civil society. The legislation triggered mass protests, which authorities met with violent dispersal. Serbia’s ruling coalition introduced its own version months later, while Serbian police separately raided foreign-funded nongovernmental organizations in early 2025.

In recent years, both regimes have also claimed victory in elections marred by fraud, voter pressure, and abuse of state resources. After the European Parliament denounced Georgia’s 2024 election as “neither free nor fair,” Tbilisi suspended its candidacy for European Union membership.

The similarities don’t stop there. Both refused to sanction Russia after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. They have since emerged as permissive hubs through which the Russians bypass Western sanctions and obtain dual-use goods.

Belgrade and Tbilisi frame Western criticism not as accountability but as hostile interference. Georgian Dream invokes a shadowy “Global War Party” trying to destabilize Georgia; Vucic accuses the West of bankrolling a “color revolution” in Serbia.

Perhaps most troublingly, Serbia and Georgia have each aggressively pursued closer political and economic ties with China.

In May, Vucic traveled to Beijing, where Chinese President Xi Jinping praised the countries’ “ironclad friendship.” The visit built on years of deepening Serbia-China ties. During Xi’s 2024 visit to Belgrade, the two countries signed 29 cooperation agreements, building on a “comprehensive strategic partnership” established in 2016.

Despite being a candidate for EU accession, Serbia inked a free-trade deal with China in 2023 and has welcomed large-scale Chinese investment in Serbian critical infrastructure under the “Belt and Road Initiative.” Beijing also sells weapons to Belgrade, and they held their first combined training exercise last year.

Georgian Dream has followed suit. Georgia and China signed a strategic partnership agreement in 2023, which they upgraded to a comprehensive strategic partnership on June 9 of this year, just days before Vucic landed in Tbilisi. Georgian Dream has awarded Chinese firms contracts for key infrastructure projects, including the strategic Anaklia deep-sea port, and joined Chinese financial institutions. 

Today, Vucic faces the largest protest movement in Serbia’s modern history. Georgian Dream is also facing historic resistance that has repeatedly brought tens of thousands of Georgians onto the streets. These are not embattled democrats under siege. They are fellow authoritarians who found each other.

The free-trade deal announced during Vucic’s visit is economically trivial: Serbia and Georgia’s total bilateral trade was just $20 million last year. While the two sides also discussed transport and logistics cooperation, none of that is the main reason why Vucic went to Tbilisi. He did so because shared legitimacy is easier to manufacture between two like-minded authoritarian regimes than it is to earn from one’s own citizens or Western partners.

Nevertheless, both Vucic and Georgian Dream are eager to court the Trump administration. Belgrade promises to enhance economic cooperation with Washington and develop “US-Serbia strategic dialogue.” Meanwhile, Tbilisi has petitioned Washington for a reset after U.S.-Georgia ties soured under the Biden administration. Yet when told that any such reset would require concrete changes in behavior, Tbilisi retorted that it’s “not a school student” to be given lessons.

Washington should see these regimes for what they are. Vucic and Georgian Dream are not friends of the United States. They are authoritarians that repress their citizens and make common cause with American adversaries — all while trying to continue reaping the benefits of Western partnership. Washington should have no illusions about either of them.

Keti Korkiya is a research analyst in the Russia Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Dr. Ivana Stradner serves as a research fellow at the FDD’s Barish Center for Media Integrity.