The Serbian government has signed a deal with Jared Kushner for the construction of a luxury hotel on the site of Belgrade’s former Defense Ministry, while his father-in-law, Donald Trump, campaigns to retake the White House.
Kushner and Richard Grenell, a former Trump administration aide, are pursuing the $500 million hotel project together. Grenell first suggested that American investors try to revive the long-abandoned bombed-out site of the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense when Grenell was a special envoy to the Balkans and still a diplomat.
The agreement, which sparked demonstrations in Belgrade on Thursday, is with a subsidiary of Kushner’s Affinity Partners, the $3 billion investment vehicle that was founded three years ago and is supported by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
In 1999, during the conflict that Serbia was then conducting with Kosovo, NATO soldiers struck the facility with US support. Today, it is regarded as a great piece of undeveloped real estate in the center of a significantly altered city, and in 2013, even Trump himself entertained the idea of constructing a hotel there.
A Serbian government official stated in a statement issued on Wednesday that “the government of Serbia has chosen a reputable American company as a partner in this venture, which will invest in the revitalization of the former Federal Secretariat for National Defense complex.”
“The economic progress in Serbia over the past decade has been impressive,” Kushner said in a statement. “This development will further elevate Belgrade into the premier international destination it is becoming.”
Kushner is investing with business partners in a number of locations, including Israel, Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Germany, and the United States. These investments are supported by a fund that primarily receives funding from the Saudi government, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest should Trump win reelection. It is estimated that roughly 99% of the capital that investors have put up with Kushner’s company originates from overseas.
Furthermore, since the projects in Serbia and neighboring Albania both require direct concessions from the local governments, Kushner may profit financially from foreign government actions while his father-in-law becomes president, prompting many ethics lawyers to question whether such conflict of interest could influence the foreign policy of a possible Republican administration. For instance, Serbia has long called for membership in the European Union.
