Are you willing to invest your savings in a condominium residence with the Trump signature? We cannot confirm the price yet, but if you are convinced by the idea, your future luxury apartment will be in Belgrade, right where the building of the Ministry of Defense and the Yugoslav General Staff bombed by NATO twice in 1999 was located, during the campaign that expelled Serbian forces from Kosovo and ended that war. The demolition order is already prepared. Behind the operation is Jared Kushner, son-in-law of the US President, husband of his eldest daughter, Ivanka, and special advisor to the White House during the magnate's first term.
However, the glass towers, the non-minimalist hotel, the museum, and the memorial monument in memory of those killed in the NATO attacks (didn't the US participate in that?) are at risk of being trapped in the renders displayed on the project's website. Not because of the protests of Serbian citizens ("This is not just a fight for a building, it is a fight to preserve our history, identity, and right to cultural heritage," they said last March during the gatherings to commemorate the 26 years of the Allied Force operation). But due to the recent arrest of a certain Goran Vasic, a Serbian architect and public worker.
And who is this Vasic to jeopardize a project of nothing less than $500 million? Until his mid-May arrest, he was the acting director of the Serbian Agency for the Protection of Cultural Monuments since June of the previous year, and he admitted, after his arrest, that he had forged the document that would allow the building's demolition.
The project, which includes the construction of a Trump International Hotel, the first of its kind in Europe, received a preliminary permit from the Serbian Government last year, even before the cultural heritage status protecting the complex was revoked. This permit grants Affinity Partners, the investment company founded by Jared Kushner after leaving his position in the US Administration, the management of the land for a period of 99 years. If it goes through, it would be the first joint project of the Kushner and Trump families. By the way, Jared's father, also a real estate businessman who went to jail for tax evasion and received a presidential pardon from Trump, will be the next US ambassador to France, following the Senate's recent endorsement.
"Vasic falsified the decision proposal to revoke the cultural heritage status," said the Serbian Organized Crime Prosecutor's Office in a statement, blaming him for "causing damage to the cultural heritage of the Republic of Serbia." Official sources reported that Vasic now faces charges of abuse of power and forgery of official documents. Affinity Partners denied any involvement in this illegal maneuver in a statement and acknowledged that the future Trump Belgrade, described on their website as "a global icon," could have an uncertain future with these new circumstances.
"We learned through the media that a Serbian government official unrelated to our company allegedly falsified documents related to the designation of the Belgrade square project as a historical monument," the company's statement, as reported by The New York Times, said. "We will review this matter and determine the next steps," the text added.
The Trump family's interest in the Balkans and the former Yugoslav General Staff is not new. The patriarch had a feeling about the place over a decade ago, before embarking on his first presidential adventure. Although when his intentions became known, Kushner claimed he didn't know about it and that his father-in-law had nothing to do with it, he confirmed it shortly afterward in a not-so discreet manner: by naming the main building of the complex Trump Tower.
As reported by the New York newspaper last year, Kushner did not have to pay a single dollar to the Serbian government for the concession of this land. Trump's son-in-law confirmed to the newspaper that the idea was to give Belgrade 22% of the project's profits.
Last January, Eric Trump, the president's son also involved in this development, stated in an interview that "Serbia is one of the fastest-growing countries in Europe, and we feel incredibly honored to be there," highlighting that "it will be fun to gather the family." His older brother, Don Jr., has repeatedly visited the Serbian capital in recent months to meet with President Aleksandar Vucic, whom he even interviewed for his podcast and endorsed, amid student protests that have been taking place since last November denouncing the endemic corruption in the country. Vucic returned the visit, although he could not meet with the father.
In another part of the Balkans, in nearby Albania, Kushner also has his eye on. There, he plans to build two new tourist complexes: one on land disputed by an Albanian family, which has been cultivating those lands for generations and claims that part was taken from them after the end of the communist regime in 1991, and another on the small island of Sazan, which housed a military base during the Cold War.
The Albanian government preliminarily approved the island project in December. According to the document from Albania's Strategic Investment Committee, led by Prime Minister Edi Rama, the government would work with its American partners to clean up possible buried ammunition and examine any other environmental or legal issues that need to be resolved before the final permit. There is no official news about the other project yet, although Ivanka Trump confirmed last summer on a podcast that it would go ahead: "We are bringing the best architects and brands," she said.