Trump project fails in Serbia: hotel construction stopped after protests

Kushner’s failure in Belgrade

Defeat for the Trump family in Serbia: President angry

After a corruption lawsuit and massive protests from the population, Trump’s son-in-law’s luxury project in Serbia failed. The president is also raging.

Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner was involved in a controversial construction project in the Serbian capital Belgrade. Kushner wanted to build a luxury hotel on the site of a memorial with the help of his investment firm Affinity Partners. Kushner had the support of the Serbian president. However, the population opposed the construction project with massive protests.

The investors’ plan called for the demolition of a historical ruin in the Serbian capital. This was supposed to be the former headquarters of the Yugoslav army, which was destroyed by NATO air strikes during the Kosovo war in 1999. The attacks were aimed at the regime of the then ruler Slobodan Milošević, who had mass murders of Kosovar Albanians. Milošević died during the war crimes tribunal in The Hague and was never convicted. However, it is proven that he would have been found guilty of the most serious human rights crimes.

Since then, the ruins in Belgrade have been an important place of remembrance, also because misguided attacks at the time killed a number of civilians. In 2005 the place was also declared a cultural monument.

Kushner’s company made the decision against building the luxury hotel out of “respect for the people of Serbia and the city of Belgrade.” The “Wall Street Journal” quotes a spokesman as saying. “Meaningful projects should connect rather than divide.” However, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić sees it differently: “This is incredibly serious and bad news,” he said. “We will now be left with a destroyed building.”

Vučić now blamed the protest movement for the economic consequences: the “agitation of the blockers” had prevented investments of “at least 750 million euros”. “As a state and as a nation, we are the big losers,” he said. In addition, the prosecutors caused “enormous damage” to Serbia.