US President Donald Trump's son Eric Trump has confirmed that the agreement to build a hotel in Serbia is one of several recently announced Trump-branded projects, with others in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.
The project will be a joint venture between the Trump family and Kushner, the son-in-law of the US President.
"Serbia is one of the fastest growing countries in Europe and we are extremely honored to be there," Eric Trump said in an interview with The New York Times on Friday, confirming the new deal, which he added would be "fun to bring the family together."
The Press News Agency (PNA) portal reports that in May last year, Serbia approved a plan to lease the former Ministry of Defense site to a company linked to Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law, to build a 175-room hotel, office space and more than 1.500 residential units in three towers. The approved plan includes a 99-year lease and a memorial complex for victims of the 1999 NATO bombing.
Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has formed a partnership with Mohammed Alabbar, the investor in Dubai's Burj Khalifa hotel, the world's tallest building. They plan to build the hotel on a site in Belgrade, leasing the property from the Serbian government, which will share profits under the draft agreement, PNA reports.
A luxury Trump-branded hotel is to be built on the site of the Ministry of Defense in Belgrade, which was bombed by NATO in 1999 and has been partially vacant since. It's an idea Trump first proposed in 2013 and his son-in-law Jared Kushner tried to develop after he left his White House adviser position during Trump's first term as president.
It would be the first major real estate project for the Trump Organization and the Kushner family. Although they have long done business together in New York, they have previously developed separate projects.
The Trump family last month announced an "ethics plan" that includes a provision that they will not enter into new business with foreign governments while they continue to implement new international projects, PNA reports.
Eric Trump said in an interview that the project does not violate that provision since the Trump Hotel will be under contract with the development company building the hotel, not with the Serbian government, which owns the property.
But the proposal has been criticized by lawyers over ethics and conflicts of interest, who said it was another example of the Trump family showing intemperance at the start of his second term in the White House.
In a statement to the New York Times on Friday, Kushner said their research showed that the Trump brand would be the best fit for that market and that Kushner and his partners hope to build a hotel on par with the former Trump International Hotel in Washington, which the Trump family sold in 2022.
The new hotel will be built through a partnership with Kushner's private equity firm Afiniti Partners and Asher Abehser, a real estate developer who has worked with Kushner on projects in Brooklyn.
The second partner in the project in Serbia is Eagle Hills, a company led by Alabar, which is building a four billion dollar residential and hotel project - the "Belgrade on the Water" settlement.
"The new project highlights our commitment to raising Belgrade's status as a top European city," Alabar said in a statement.
According to the newspaper, the agreement with Serbia comes at a time when it is seeking US support for its long-stalled bid to join the European Union, adding that the US has been encouraging Serbia to strengthen ties with Europe and the West in general, as opposed to Russia, with which it also has long-standing economic ties.
For Trump, the project in Serbia is the culmination of a plan he conceived in 2013, two years before he ran for president, the portal reports. At that time, Trump told a senior Serbian official that he wanted to build a luxury hotel on the site of the Ministry of Defense in Belgrade.
Trump Organization associates traveled to Belgrade to scout the location, but the project did not get underway before Trump's election as US president in 2016, the portal recalls. It states that Kushner and Richard Grenell, who was special envoy for the Balkans in Trump's first administration and later Kushner's business partner, visited the site again last year.
Grenell, who helped negotiate the agreement, was recently appointed as Trump's special envoy for missions.
"The project is now feasible thanks to the extraordinary growth and vibrancy of Belgrade," Kouchner said in a statement on Friday.
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