Luxury hotel in Serbia, joint Trump-Kushner project

This plan illustrates the Trump family's continued ambitions to forge new international business deals even after President Trump returns to the White House.

More than a decade since Donald J. Trump first floated the idea of ​​building a hotel on government property in Serbia, his family is now close to realizing the dream in a complicated deal involving real estate agents from Abu Dhabi and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, The New York Times reported. 

This plan illustrates the Trump family's continued ambitions to forge new international deals even after President Trump returns to the White House. It also reflects less attention, compared to his first term, to avoiding the appearance of conflicts of interest related to overseas projects.

A luxury Trump-branded hotel is to be built on the former Defense Ministry property in Belgrade, which was bombed by NATO in 1999 and has since been abandoned. It's an idea Trump first proposed in 2013, and an initiative Kushner began pursuing after leaving his job as an adviser during Trump's first term. 

Kushner has formed a partnership with Mohamed Alabbari, the developer of the Burj Khalifa hotel in Dubai, the world's tallest building. They plan to build the new hotel in Belgrade with permission from the Serbian government, which will benefit from the profits, according to the draft agreement. 

This would be the first major real estate project between the Trump Organization and the Kushner family. Although both have long been in business in New York, they have previously pursued projects separately. 

The hotel deal in Serbia is one of several new projects unveiled by the Trump brand, with other projects revealed in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. 

"Serbia is one of the fastest growing countries in Europe and we are incredibly honored to be there," Eric Trump, the president's son, said in an interview on Friday when confirming the new agreement, adding that "it will be fun to bring the family together." 

The agreement with Serbia comes as the country seeks support from the United States on its long-drawn-out path to join the European Union. The United States has pushed Serbia to strengthen relations with Europe and the West in general, in opposition to Russia, with which it has had long economic ties. 

In May, Serbia approved a plan to lease former Defense Ministry property to a company linked to Kushner to build a 175-room hotel, retail space and more than 1,500 residential units in three towers. The approved plan includes a 99-year lease and a memorial complex for those injured or killed in NATO bombings. 

The Trump family has announced an ethics plan that includes a provision that stipulates that no new agreements will be formed with foreign governments, even as it continues with new international projects.

Eric Trump said in an interview Friday that the project did not violate that provision because the Trump Hotel would be under contract with the developer that will build the hotel and not with the Serbian government, which owns the land. But the proposal drew immediate criticism from ethics lawyers, who called it another example of the Trump family's lack of restraint at the start of Trump's second term in the White House. 

Last week, the family launched a cryptocurrency venture, despite Trump appointing a new interim chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees cryptocurrencies. 

“The Trump family is placing so few restrictions on his private business that it creates opportunities for foreign governments to enrich the president in the hope of receiving favors,” said Deepak Guta, a lawyer in Washington. “In this case, it appears they are violating the limits they have set for their own dealings with foreign businesses.” 

Gupta worked on two of the lawsuits filed during Trump's first term, which alleged he was violating what is known as the emoluments clause of the Constitution, which prohibits payments by foreign governments to U.S. officials. 

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In a statement to the New York Times on Friday, Kushner said that "our research indicated that the Trump brand would be the best fit for this market."

Kushner and his partners hoped to build a project alongside the former Trump International Hotel in Washington, which operated out of the Old Post Office until the Trump family sold it in 2022. 

The new project will be developed in partnership between Kushner's private equity firm, Affinity Partners, and Asher Abehsera, a real estate developer who has worked with Kushner in Brooklyn. 
The other partner in the project in Serbia is Eagle Hills, the company led by Alabbar, which is building a $4 billion hotel and residential project on the Belgrade waterfront. 

"This development marks our commitment to raising Belgrade's status as a premier European city," Alabbar stated. 

Most of Kushner's capital comes from sovereign wealth funds, from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar, countries that have so far contributed about $4.6 billion to Kushner's fund since he left the White House at the end of the Trump administration's first term. 

For President Trump, the deal in Serbia is the culmination of a plan begun in 2013, two years before he began his presidential campaign. At that time, Trump told a senior Serbian government official that he wanted to build a luxury hotel on ministry property.

Representatives from the Trump Organization traveled to Belgrade at the time to inspect the site. The project was not finalized before Trump's election in 2016. But it was revisited last year by Kushner and Richard Grenell, who served as Trump's special envoy to the Balkans during his first administration and was most recently Kushner's business partner. 

Grenell, who helped negotiate the deal, was recently appointed as the envoy for Special Missions in the new Trump administration. 

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"This project is possible thanks to the growth and vitality of Belgrade," Kushner declared on Friday, without saying that the idea originally belonged to his wife's father.

Prepared by: Shkëlzen Dema