Aleksandar Vučić, Serbia's authoritarian president, personally summoned heritage officials to his presidential offices in February 2024 and ordered them to rescind the protected status of Belgrade's General Staff building — an architectural landmark and symbol of resistance to the Nazis — to clear the way for a $500m Trump-Kushner hotel and residential tower. Two people with knowledge of the meeting told the Guardian that Vučić's tone was threatening and his message explicit: do what I want or resign. This meeting is not mentioned in the landmark indictment that has since charged his culture minister and other senior figures with abuse of public office. The scheme's mechanics are straightforward extraction. A leaked agreement showed the Serbian government granted Jared Kushner's real estate company a 99-year lease over the General Staff site, free of charge. A contract dated 13 May 2024, seen by the Guardian, committed the government to removing the site's cultural heritage designation "to the satisfaction" of Kushner's company. When Dubravka Đukanović, director of Serbia's institute for the protection of cultural monuments, and Belgrade's top heritage official Olivera Vučković refused to comply, finance minister Siniša Mali repeated the president's ultimatum. Both women resigned rather than participate. The timeline maps neatly onto Trump's political trajectory. Kushner had been scouting the project since 2021. By early 2024, Trump was storming to the Republican nomination. After Trump won re-election in November, Vučić's government announced within ten days that the General Staff site had been stripped of its protected status. Four days after Trump's January 2025 inauguration, Eric Trump announced the families' first joint venture: the Belgrade tower would bear the Trump name. The Belgrade case sits within a global pattern the article documents with specifics. In Vietnam, permits for a £1.5bn Trump golf resort were granted with unusual speed; Trump then halved Vietnam's tariffs. Saudi Arabia poured money into Kushner's fund and plans emerged for a Trump plaza in Jeddah; Trump agreed to sell the kingdom new US fighter jets. A cryptocurrency transaction involving senior Emiratis and World Liberty Financial — the digital currency venture founded by Don Jr and Eric — was followed by a pardon for the crypto baron involved and UAE access to restricted US chips. When prosecutors brought abuse of power charges last December, Kushner's company announced the Belgrade project would not proceed "at this time." Vučić responded by calling the prosecutors "corrupt gangs" who "fabricated cases" and threatened to "personally ensure that everyone who participated in causing this damage is held accountable." Representatives of the Trumps and Kushner said they had no part in the removal of protected status and that characterizing the project as "pay to play" would be "false." Vučić has called a snap election for 25 October, ensuring that a hearing at which witnesses might reveal details of his direct involvement will not take place until after the vote. He faces a mass protest movement driven by government corruption. The criminal case is believed to be the first indictment resulting from the Trump family's global moneymaking campaign — but the indictment's omission of Vučić's own role in the initial meeting raises pointed questions about prosecutorial independence and what information is being withheld. Kushner, now serving as a presidential envoy to Russia and Israel while maintaining his investment fund, offered a revealing reframe when asked about conflicts of interest: "What people call conflicts of interests … I call experience and trusted relationships that we have throughout the world." The statement is worth reading twice. It is not a denial. It is a redefinition — one that treats the merger of public power and private enrichment not as corruption but as a business model.
