“We share common challenges and common goals with this new administration,” Mucunski said.

Australia and North Macedonia held their first foreign ministers’ meeting in 20 years this week Source: Twitter / @TimcoMucunski/X

He said new approaches are needed to address “key threats” like China and Russia.

Trump later clarified Ukraine would not be sidelined in the talks.

North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski and Foreign Minister Timčo Mucunski were among a handful of world leaders invited to Donald Trump’s second inauguration. Source: Getty / Chip Somodevilla

‘We need to be much more pragmatic’

“We are a small, landlocked nation, and upholding these standards is of the utmost importance to us.”

‘Extremely serious’

He said there have been “serious attempts” at Russian malign influence in both the Western Balkans and south-eastern Europe.

Destroyed buildings in Kurakhove, Donetsk region, Ukraine, in November. Russia and Ukraine have been at war for nearly three years. Source: AAP, AP / Anton Shtuka

A European Parliamentary Research Service briefing paper from 2023 said Russia had found it “easy and useful” to interfere in the Western Balkans in a bid to, among other things, “undermine the EU and NATO, slowing down full integration into Western institutions”.

North Macedonia has been on the EU’s candidate list for 20 years.

Tackling corruption ‘biggest challenge’

“There are ongoing processes between the two countries.”

Donald Trump a ‘big thinker’, Peter Dutton says

“Even if this announcement is actually a legitimate foreign policy that he really intends to pursue, that’s not to say it would actually happen or that he might not change his mind in the next weeks or months,” she told SBS News last week.