A Trump-style tower in Belgrade? Serbs say it reopens war wounds.

BELGRADE — For many Serbs, it’s as if the Taliban wanted to build a luxury apartment compound on the site of New York’s Twin Towers.

That’s how news of a redevelopment project proposed by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former U.S. President Donald Trump, and Richard Grenell, a key Trump ally, is being taken in some quarters of Belgrade.

The plan includes the demolition of the bombed-out former Yugoslav army headquarters, which until now had been left largely undeveloped as an unofficial memorial to Serbian suffering during the 1999 NATO bombing of Belgrade. In its place would rise a Trump Tower-style high-rise complex of luxury apartments and offices.

The proposal has generated no shortage of outrage in Serbia, centered mostly around the building’s historical significance — in particular, the fact that an American company (one step away from a U.S. president, no less) would be redeveloping the symbol of a Washington-led bombing campaign.

“It’s outrageous for the site where people were killed and bombed to be turned into a place with jacuzzis and casinos,” said Aleksandar Jovanović Ćuta, an opposition politician who was the first to publicize a leak outlining the plan in February.

According to the documents leaked to Jovanović, negotiations have been underway at least since 2022. Under the terms of the proposed deal, the Serbian infrastructure ministry would gift a 99-year permit for two plots of land that housed the headquarters to Kushner Realty and Atlantic Incubation Partners, a limited liability company registered in Delaware last year.

After the initial leak, Kushner confirmed the news by sharing digital projections of the development plans on X, which also include projects in Albania.

“Excited to share some early design images,” Kushner wrote on the social media site, sharing a picture of two illuminated towers telescoping into the Belgrade skyline.

The bombing of the Yugoslav army headquarters

Known colloquially as the Yugoslav army headquarters building or Generalštab, the site in Belgrade once served as the nerve center for military intelligence and operations of the now-defunct socialist republic of Yugoslavia.

For many Serbians, its hollowed-out ruins are a reminder of the NATO bombing campaign in which the U.S. and its allies targeted strategic military and political sites in Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo in an attempt to curb Serbian strongman Slobodan Milošević’s ethnic cleansing campaigns.

The multi-story ruin stretches across a key crossroad in the center of the city. Its crumbling concrete innards and tangled metal rebars have remained largely untouched for decades despite its location right across from the seat of Serbia’s government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Rumors of the Trump family’s interest in the site go back to 2013, when then-Prime Minister Ivica Dačić said the former U.S. president — a property mogul and reality TV star at the time — was interested in building a luxurious hotel on the location.

The multi-story ruin stretches across a key crossroad in the center of the city. | Andrej Isakovic/AFP via Getty Images

Grenell, who served as ambassador to Germany and envoy to Serbia and Kosovo under Trump, also proposed developing the location in 2020, as his boss was preparing to run for reelection.

The most recent proposal became public after Jovanović published leaked documents that showed the government had authorized Minister of Infrastructure Goran Vesić to sign an investment contract with Kushner’s company, Atlantic Incubations LLC. An earlier memorandum of understanding had been signed in December 2022 with a “company affiliated with Kushner Realty.”

“People on the inside who are deeply opposed to the project gave us the document,” Jovanović said. “The reason more people who are against the project aren’t coming out in public is because they know they’ll be fired and punished for it immediately.”

Jovanović and other opposition figures have launched a petition against the project, gathering approximately 22,000 signatures, and announced protests to prevent the project from being carried out.

“Imagine if a U.S. president participated in and conducted secret commercial construction deals for places like West Point with China or Russia?”

Richard Grenell’s Balkan adventure

It was hardly a shock to Serbians that Grenell emerged as the primary liaison between Kushner and the Serbian government.

During his time as ambassador and envoy, Grenell embodied the Trumpian style of diplomacy: loud, blunt and often transactional, ruffling the feathers of both officials in the region and the broader Western foreign policy establishment.

At one point, he “jokingly” suggested solving a dispute between Serbia and Kosovo — which declared its independence from Serbia in 2008 — over what to call a lake on the border by renaming it “Lake Trump.”

The government of Kosovo, one of the most pro-American countries in the region, accused him of orchestrating the unseating of Prime Minister Albin Kurti in early 2020 — a claim later confirmed by Kosovo opposition members who said Grenell gave them a deadline for a vote of no-confidence in Kurti’s government.

“As the envoy for Kosovo-Serbia in the Trump administration, Mr. Grenell trivialized the complex political issues between Kosovo and Serbia and sought to claim quick credit for resolving the so-called ‘ancient animosities’ right in time for Trump’s 2020 campaign speeches,” said Majda Ruge, a fellow at the European Council for Foreign Relations focused on the region.

“In that sense, he was a foreign policy trophy-seeking missile, rather than your traditional diplomat who understands the issues at hand. He cared less about the content of the deal than being able to claim foreign policy success,” she added.

Grenell’s involvement in the region was a less lauded — and less successful — component of the Trump administration’s wider push to resolve historic disputes, which included a push to improve relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, known as the Trump Peace Plan or the Abraham Accords.

Richard Grenell’s involvement in the region was a less lauded — and less successful — component of the Trump administration’s wider push to resolve historic disputes. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images

While Grenell managed the Balkan part of the plan, Kushner handled the Middle East. Both efforts include financial incentives to sign agreements from the U.S. government, including private sector loans managed by the newly formed U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC).

During Trump’s presidency, the DFC was led by Adam Boehler, Kushner’s former college roommate. In 2020, Boehler held a press conference in Belgrade with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić to announce the opening of a local office in the city. They also discussed using DFC funds to invest in the Yugoslav army building.

Grenell, who remains a close Trump ally, has been whispered about as a potential secretary of State if the former U.S. president returns to the White House. As he jetted in and out of the region in the years since leaving office, Grenell frequently shared his opinions on Balkan affairs on X, posting videos of himself at late-night parties in packed Belgrade clubs, arm-in-arm with Serbian Minister of Finance Siniša Mali — the signatory of the DFC deal between the U.S. and Serbia governing the investment bank’s activities in the country.

Since news of the plan leaked, Grenell has served as the project’s unofficial spokesperson in the Balkans. In an interview with a pro-government newspaper, for instance, he attempted to alleviate concerns that the project only has a commercial interest.

“Despite not having a deep understanding of Balkan history,” everyone involved in the project is highly aware of its symbolic importance, he said. He added that the project would include a memorial to the victims of the bombing as its focal point.

Grenell did not respond to requests for comment.

Serbian pushback to Kushner’s development plans

Opponents of the project claim that one of the reasons negotiations around the redevelopment of the site have taken place largely behind closed doors is because granting the land to foreign investors would violate laws designating the building as “cultural heritage.”

“If they are serious about going ahead with the construction on the location of the former Yugoslav headquarters, at least three separate regulations need to be abolished,” said Branislav Dimitrijević, an art historian who participates in protest movements against unsanctioned construction in Belgrade.

He explained that the specific location on Knez Miloš Street where the building is located was designated for use exclusively as the administrative or government center going back to the first urban construction plans for Belgrade in the 19th century and is not meant for commercial projects.

“A very serious violation of the law is needed for that area to be transferred or sold to anyone, let alone gifted as is the case with the Kushner deal,” continued Dimitrijević.

In 2005, the building was designated a protected monument by a decision of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, a body of the City of Belgrade. Their decision specifies that any changes to the building need to “preserve the authentic appearance, horizontal and vertical dimensions, construction and design elements of the building as well as its original materials.”

In March, local media outlets reported that the Institute had received no requests to change the current status of the building. No proposals to change the status have been voted on or discussed by the municipal assembly either.

The NATO bombing remains an emotional issue in Serbia. | Andrej Isakovic/AFP via Getty Images

But it’s the involvement of a U.S. company in the project that has sparked the most controversy.

“It’s a blatant way of saying, ‘We’re your Western overlords and we can stomp over your heritage and your emotional scars for our personal benefit,'” said Jovanović, the opposition politician.

The NATO bombing remains an emotional issue in Serbia. As recently as March, demonstrators gathered in front of bombed-out army headquarters waving Serbian and Russian flags to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the strike, with media outlets dedicating hours of airtime and newspaper inches to discussing the “crime.”

Since news of the project leaked, however, newspapers, websites and television channels close to the government have been far more measured in their tone — a reflection some say of Serbia’s desire to cultivate what could be the next U.S. administration.

“Theoretically, if Trump was re-elected this would definitely improve the relationship between Belgrade and Washington,” said Igor Novaković a researcher at the International and Security Affairs Center (ISAC) Fund, a Serbian foreign policy think tank.

“If the government is counting on improving relations with Washington through this project, then there could be some twisted political symbolism where the tearing down of precisely this building leads to a new era in the U.S.-Serbia relationship that overcomes the past,” Novaković added.