But the plans have run into a lot of local resistance.
Moves by Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić’s government to advance the project have sparked an outcry among opposition lawmakers. Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets. And students and activists vow to occupy the property when the bulldozers move in.
The imbroglio comes as Kushner’s financial dealmaking has picked up, while he has simultaneously re-entered public life.
President Trump’s son-in-law initially said he wouldn’t return to government service. But now he is taking on a major geopolitical responsibility, volunteering to help lead U.S. negotiations to end the Russia-Ukraine war, following a similar role in Gaza.
At the same time, he runs a $4.8 billion private-equity firm that invests globally, and is mostly funded by Middle Eastern governments. That firm, Affinity Partners, is part of a record-breaking $55 billion buyout of Electronic Arts and is helping fund Paramount’s hostile bid for Warner Bros.
The Serbian quagmire began when the Vučić administration sought to remove cultural-heritage protections from the former army complex that it aims to transfer to Kushner’s company.
A special prosecutor threw a wrench in the process, arresting a government official for allegedly forging documents, and launching a wider investigation. In response, the ruling party sidestepped the inquiry by passing two quick-fire measures in Parliament, stripping protected status from the site and numerous other old civic buildings.
Opponents decried the move as unconstitutional and corrupt, saying Vučić’s government is trying to win favor with the U.S. The Balkan country—historically close to Moscow, but with many ties to Western Europe—has plenty of things it wants from the Trump administration, such as lifting sanctions on its sole oil refinery.
“You call it an investment, we call it high treason,” Marinika Tepić, a leading opposition lawmaker, said in Parliament.
Vučić says the Kushner deal has nothing to do with politics, but is about overhauling a downtown eyesore that the government had tried for years to redevelop.
An Affinity spokesman said the firm had no connection to the alleged forgery and has been reviewing the project.
A White House spokeswoman said, “President Trump has a trusted family member and talented adviser in Jared Kushner,” saying he “has been generous in lending his valuable expertise when asked.”
In the U.S., senior administration officials typically must divest private holdings. That is meant to avoid potential conflicts of interest where financial interests could cloud policy decisions. But the strictures don’t apply to Kushner because he is an informal, unpaid adviser.
Kushner has said he has told his investors they shouldn’t expect any favorable treatment from the U.S. in return. Speaking to “60 Minutes” alongside Russia and Gaza co-negotiator Steve Witkoff in October, he said, “nobody’s pointed out any instances where Steve or I have pursued any policies or done anything that have not been in the interests of America.”
White marble and red limestone
The contested site is the former home of the General Staff complex, a pair of office buildings built for the then-Yugoslavian army in 1964 with a modernist design clad with Croatian white marble and Serbian red limestone.
During a spring 1999 air campaign meant to halt ethnic cleansing led by Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, NATO jets bombed and partially destroyed the Belgrade complex.
Milošević was overthrown, but the site still resonates as a symbol of national identity, particularly on the political right, complicating efforts to remake it into a memorial or private commercial development. As a result, it remains a ruin—a mostly standing skeleton with steel rebar protruding from mangled concrete walls.
Critics from all sides therefore found plenty to dislike. Left-wing politicians call it a giveaway of a public asset without an open process. On the right, nationalists decry the sale to a family tied to the most powerful country in NATO on a site they see as hallowed ground.
Serbian opponents are now appealing to the country’s constitutional court to block the recent legislation. Government officials, meanwhile, are moving to put new restrictions on the office of the special prosecutor who upended the approval process.
Activist Djordje Miketic said he works with a network of nearly 300 people who monitor the site—watching from windows, patrolling late at night and occasionally sleeping in a camper van.
They want to spot demolition crews coming in, then sound the alarm to student protesters, preservationists and other activists who plan to occupy the site. Multiple similar efforts slowed big Serbian government-led projects in recent years—but ultimately didn’t stop them.
Miketic said the fight won’t be waged “through the institutions, it’s more on the streets.”
Emirati partners
Kushner first got involved with the project after Trump’s first term. He has said he was drawn to the project by the growing vibrancy of Belgrade, where property prices have risen and a burst of new condo projects have drawn a wealthier crowd.
Soon after he set up Affinity, Trump’s former envoy for the Balkans, Richard Grenell, suggested Kushner take a look. In early 2024, he struck a deal for the property with Vučić’s government.
He brought in partners, entering a joint venture with Eagle Hills, a United Arab Emirates-based developer with experience in Belgrade. The hotel will be branded by the Trump Organization, a deal he struck after talking with his brother-in-law, Eric Trump.
The backlash hasn’t been confined to Serbia.
A Serbian statement that Kushner must build a “memorial dedicated to all the victims of NATO aggression” has also sparked attacks, including from Wesley Clark, NATO’s military commander during the Balkan war, and Democratic lawmakers.
A European Parliament report singled out the General Staff building, saying it had “grave concern about the increasing political interference in heritage protection in Serbia.”
Architects and preservationists have rallied against the plan, too.
“The project they’re erasing is a very important architectural piece,” said Ana Miljački, a Serbian-born professor of architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It would be like “putting a Trump hotel” on I.M. Pei’s building at the Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, she added.
Write to Eliot Brown at Eliot.Brown@wsj.com and Deborah Acosta at deborah.acosta@wsj.com