Despite the controversy, Serbia’s parliament pushed the project through, with President Aleksandar Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party passing a special law to strip the site of its cultural protections. Lawmakers took the unusual step of invoking a constitutional provision to declare the development a project of national importance, thereby allowing it to proceed.
Opposition lawmakers lashed out at the government over its decision, with center-left MP Marinika Tepić claiming Belgrade was sacrificing the country’s history simply “to please Donald Trump.”
“In a place where bombs once fell, you now plan to pour champagne,” she said.
But Vučić has argued the project is necessary to improve ties with Washington, accusing its critics of wanting to get in the way of “better relations with the Trump administration.”
Kushner, who has no official role in the White House but has frequently advised his father-in-law, has pursued a flurry of major real-estate development deals around the world in recent years, including a luxury resort in Albania. Affinity Partners, a private investment firm founded by Kushner, was gifted a 99-year lease by Serbia’s government in 2022 to build the Trump-branded development in Belgrade.
Anti-corruption activists have taken to the streets across Serbia over the past year, protesting what they describe as the government’s impunity and lack of accountability. This week, the European Commission highlighted Belgrade’s slow pace of reforms on corruption and rule-of-law standards in its annual enlargement progress report.