This is the kind of headline we expect the Opposition to challenge and counter with the force of all of its parts.
It’s not Javanovic’s academic qualifications that invoke the higher version of curiosity. It’s how he got the job as head of Export-Import –Exim Bank of USA, an independent Federal American Agency.
And, the path should be alarming to Guyanese, now part of a Shield of America’s with a membership that’s pliable and submissive to Trump’s security vision.
In Trump One—his 2016 to 2020 tenure—Jovanovic served as Trump’s Regional Head and Managing Director at the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), acting as the front man for the initial 2020 Belgrade footprint. It was a taxpayer-funded scouting mission and networking pipeline to secure highly lucrative real estate assets for the Trump family business, seemingly.
Biden’s win in 2020 brought an abrupt review of the USD 3.7 billion Letters of Interest seduction of investors in Serbia but the structural groundwork remained.
We’re not saying that Jovanovic’s elevation to head of US EXIM Bank was a reward for whatever part he may or may not have played during Trump One and Belgrade. But Trump’s son-in-law’s $500 million acquisition of a historical military complex, to turn into a hotel, didn’t smell like lavender—even after he withdrew from the lease in 2025.
Sitting on the books as potential assets has certain borrowing power, we’re thinking.
And, linked to the preceding is the historic Kosovo /Serbia normalization agreement that Trump signed with Pious Pence as an onlooker.
The two countries are infamous for their embedded corruption. Institutional vulnerabilities are structural. Non-independent judiciary is standard. They are seen as so caustic that they continue to be refused membership by the European Union.
And all of these un-forecast fortunes happened when Jovanovic was head of Belgrade’s DFC, during Trump One.
Of course, there’s always more entanglement than meets the eye.
Who would know that Jovanovic is son-in-law of Dr. Oz –Trump’s Head of Medicare/Medicaid, a previously respected and qualified cardio thoracic surgeon but now blemished by peddling false remedies.
There’s the Howard Lutnick –of Jeffery Epstein fame– now Trump’s Secretary of Commerce who endorsed Javanovic, whom he knew from Wall Street, to be Head of EXIM bank.
With Lutnick as Commerce Secretary and Javonovic as Head of EXIM Bank we can see how commercial deals could be strangled at the export import level with these two. Tariffs from Commerce and loan modifications from EXIM can result in easing of restrictions on United Arab Emirates.
We can draw a straight line from that to their purchase of $500 million worth of Trump’s crypto business …mostly because the line looks straight.
And while we’re in the neighborhood, we can look at the paradox of two personalities in one compromised leader. Trump, America’s war-time President and Businessman Trump, recipient of ongoing millions from Oman which is security negotiator with his war time enemy, Iran, are one and the same person.
Entangled in this is Trump’s 500Million branding deal in Oman. And all that is a backdrop for EXIM Bank’s Jovanavic, and why Trump would bring him back to his second Administration.
In the first Administration, the patronage connection of Jovanavic was through Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Jovanovic’s financing background is credited for setting up the groundwork to back the economic agreements between Serbia and Kosovo. The newly created US International Development Finance Corporation DFC was led by Adam Boehler, another Kushner crony.
Here’s how this coterie of cabinet and cabinet -adjacent members read into the mechanics of the Trump Administration.
President Trump hired son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Kushner brought in Adam Boehler who brought in Jon Jovanavic who knew Harold Lutnick from wall street. Lutnick knew Trump through child trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein. Kevin Hasset was a fortune hunter, per opinion, who hopped on the Trump Train. With his baggage of coin base conflict of interest he joined friend Gary Cohn , whose mortgage -backed securities deals was part of his smeared reputation, as was his 1MDB sovereign wealth fund disgrace.
The careful assembly of this, too perfectly coordinated white collar crew, could be the crime, if this were ever assessed for one.
Trump and his son in law, whose cast-net hauled in characters with overlapping conflicts of interest and enduring scandals, point to a culture of practiced dishonesty…which anointed Jovanovic of EXIM BANK.
His appointment was immediately preceded by the firing of Inspector General Parisa Salehi. The reason for firing an Inspector General is implied.
And it’s this Jovanovic, of both ill and doubtful repute, who is standing with Guyana’s President, asserting some backing of a “transformational drive”.
Trump’s UN General Assembly speech was a landmark in its history with the wanton boast of “taking Venezuela’s oil”. He bragged that the interim President, whom he anointed, worked with him to secure a massive 99 year oil deal for America. Notable is the role of Marco Rubio , de facto viceroy of America’s Venezuela.
And all this comes at a time when Jovanovic is discussing a Gas to Energy project with overleaping costs at every calculation.
Now, with USD 478M exploding to USD 2 billion – a 318.41% cost increase from 2018 to 2026, there is need for meticulous oversight.
There was always a feeling of distrust for the cheery announcement by the US Embassy of a resident Citibank as a commercial vendor. Now it seems it was more than business advertising.
It’s no secret that Trump has cowered Citibank in Trump Two.
He has made it a repository for his private banking…which needs shelter from scrutiny, is the thinking. For that bonus, Citi will house Venezuela’s 13 billion, and counting, in oil revenues… in exchange for implied ‘ease’ in regulatory oversight. And this brings, sharply into focus, the arrival of Citi Bank Georgetown when Guyana’s oil revenues are, reportedly, burgeoning.
EXIM Bank, with its line of reputationally questionable associates and a gas- to- energy project that has soared 318.41%, has to stir the governing Opposition. So far, the project removes USD 1.52 billion – raw numbers– from Guyanese. And that’s just a crumb of the country’s oil revenues.
The bulk will now be housed with Citibank through the blessings of America’s ‘pay -to play’ corrupt President Trump, per American Bar Association.
And, to date, the comparative complacency to the obvious setting up of access to national revenue, over and above Guyana’s Government, is relegated to non critical issues by the Opposition…if being contemplated at all.
Trump’s instructions to drop charges against Delcy Rodriguez is more reward than benevolence.
Rodriguez was undercutting Maduro with Washington since 2020. No doubt Marco Rubio, who was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Committee, knew that, when he succumbed to ambition to serve the current Administration…is the thinking.
He brought the idea of oil to Trump whose appetite for crime is insatiable, says many.
The question now is Guyana and its EXIM Bank, Citibank, access to its oil revenue.
Who’s losing the benefit of the USD 1.52 billion – raw numbers– at these mounting costs of service?
In a country polarized by race, that does not record employment by ethnicity and with a census that lags in current/accurate numbers by design, tabulating the demographic that loses when patrimony is mismanaged requires very little speculation.
And this is where we get in to trouble.
Where is the Opposition whose job is, essentially, oversight of these issues?
Our bias sits with the Seasoned Opposition, PNCR, the one with the decades of expertise and complement of academically qualified professionals.
We don’t expect their leader, whose currency is beyond devalued, to have a plan. But these professionals have a duty to not be mislead by his raggedy leadership…drowning and clutching not for service, but self preservation.
We’re thinking that Trump, who used the UN General Assembly to showcase the might of his Shield of Americas, is, unsubtly, asserting some geopolitics. He is acutely aware of Guyana’s oil potential and the fact that Exxon, America’s premier oil hunter, has access to its ‘turn on’ and ‘shut off’ pipes.
Reading the alliance of Venezuela’s Delcy Rodriguez in to the minutes of the General assembly was a free demo for dependent countries like Guyana to understand the leverage it does not have.
With the hours that have past since the Ali/Jovanovic announcement and no Seasoned Opposition response, we can predict the outcome.
The ‘Transformational Drive’, via EXIM Bank, will come with great benefits. None of those benefits will be reflected in improved conditions of Guyanese, let alone those who receive the least of the nation’s patrimony.
And the Seasoned Opposition, deferring to ineptitude, may never tell us.
