Trump Family Looms Over Serbian Political Crisis

The ruins of the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defence building in central Belgrade are hard to miss. Shorn clean in half, the structure stands in a state of precarious decay, inner floors caving in and steel girders exposed.

Ripped apart by two NATO bombs in 1999, the building has sat undisturbed for a quarter century, an attempt to preserve the memory of a painful time in Serbia’s history. There — across the street from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — the ruins may have sat in perpetuity. Until an unlikely actor stepped in.

In May of last year, an investment firm belonging to President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner secured rights to convert the location into a luxury Trump tower development project, complete with a hotel, apartments and office space.

The move might have come as a surprise to some. But experts know that Serbia’s embattled president, Aleksandar Vučić, has been cultivating a relationship with the United States and Trump family for years. The Kushner-led Trump hotel project was just the latest mutually beneficial deal to come of it.

Now, amid societal disruption and mass protests raging across the country for more than four months, the hotel project has again drawn ire — and raised questions of whether the Trump family’s interests mean Washington will be a reliable ally for Vučić in a looming political showdown.

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The Serbian Crisis

Every Friday in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city, people stop in action at precisely 11:52 am. They stand motionless on the street in solemn vigil for 16 minutes — one for each victim of the disaster just before noon on 1 November 2024 that sparked mass outrage at the Government.

That day is burned into Nemanja Ćurčić’s memory. A 29-year-old English language and literature student at Novi Sad University, he was at work when his brother called, asking if he had travelled that day or was anywhere near the railway station.

“I was like, ‘No, of course not, I’m at work,’” Ćurčić recalled saying. “And he said, ‘Fine, that’s good. Something bad happened.’”

Ćurčić pulled up the news. An outdoor canopy at the recently renovated local train station had collapsed. In the coming days, rescuers picking through the rubble pulled out 14 bodies. (One additional person succumbed to their injuries shortly after the incident, and another died at the Belgrade military hospital on 21 March, raising the total number of victims to 16.)

Shock turned to anger, in no part helped by the fact that the Government initially denied that the canopy had been part of its reconstruction project. Locals blamed the disaster on rampant corruption and mismanagement. Ćurčić soon found himself out on the street, protesting alongside other students in a movement that has since spread to more than 200 towns and cities across the country.

The political crisis represents one of the strongest challenges yet to the 12-year rule of Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party, and it shows no signs of abating. On 15 March, more than 100,000 protesters converged in Belgrade for one of the largest mass demonstrations in Serbia’s history. A few days later, the Government led by Vučić ally Miloš Vučević resigned, raising the possibility of fresh elections in the coming months.

Protesters, who have consciously refrained from throwing their support behind opposition political parties, are seeking fulfilment of four demands largely centred around flushing out systemic corruption.

Rebuilding the Novi Sad railway station was a particularly important initiative for Vučić. Led by a Chinese consortium, construction on the station finished last summer, a crucial link in the modernised rail line between Belgrade and Budapest.

“This is a huge building project that symbolises the economic stabilisation and relative progress of Serbia in the last 10 years,” explained Dejan Bursać, a political consultant and researcher at the University of Belgrade. “Vučić really started to employ that in political terms to gain popularity.”

Bursać claimed that Vučić has led Serbia with what he calls a “cult of construction”: political support derived from attracting international investments to build modern infrastructure. The train line was supposed to be the crowning jewel of that strategy. Instead, it undermined the entire premise.

The railway station remains abandoned, a memorial outside overflowing with flowers. Officials have given no timeline for its repair, something Bursać said is due to the sensitivity of the issue.

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Enter the Trump Family

Kushner’s arrival in Serbian business last year was presaged by improving relations between the two countries under Trump, particularly during the latter half of his first term.

Months of behind-the-scenes manoeuvring in 2020 culminated in a historic summit organised by Richard Grenell, a Trump ally appointed envoy to Serbia and Kosovo. In a meeting with Trump at the White House, Vučić and then-Prime Minister of Kosovo Avdullah Hoti signed an agreement on normalising economic relations, a major diplomatic win for Trump.

“Trump has this kind of obsession to solve world problems because he’s a famous ‘deal maker,’” said Dušan Milenković, a political consultant and commentator. “So Vučić tried to exploit that by offering him some kind of win for the Serbia-Kosovo problem that’s been here for decades.”

It was later revealed that Grenell played a key role in encouraging Kushner to go ahead with the Belgrade development. The Trump name enjoys a positive reputation in Serbia — last year, a poll found that 59% of Serbs approve of Trump, the highest among sampled countries — but this move was met with outrage. Serbs consider the former army command building a sacred memorial. A recent protest against the planned development was a testament to their frustration.

Nevertheless, Vučić remains a stalwart ally. During a recent appearance on Donald Trump Jr’s podcast Triggered, he discredited protestors by echoing Trump’s criticism of foreign spending. “Can you imagine that all these NGOs that were participating in organising these events in Serbia were paid from outside? From the United States, from USAID, National Endowment for Democracy, from some other organisations.”

The question is whether, if cornered by pressure from the protests, Vučić will seek out Trump for support, and whether the Administration will try to play its role as a stabiliser once again.

According to Milenković, the Administration has already demonstrated its position by taking a hands-off approach. “All these months of uprising, repression, and everything that we saw would really make any other US administration react, at least, let’s say, on the level of principle,” he said. “Maybe not directly attacking Vučić, but [saying in statements] that we need democracy and the rule of law.”

Experts who spoke to Byline Times agreed that these protests are unprecedented in their scope, and that it will be difficult for Vučić to hold onto power through the crisis. But with the US trying to shrink its international footprint, they added, it is unlikely that it will choose to take a strong stance in a faraway domestic political dispute — even if the two countries’ relationship is strong.

“I think it’s currently on the periphery of US interests,” said Jelena Kleut, a professor at Novi Sad University, of the protest movement. But, she said of Trump and Vučić, “I’m pretty certain that when the two of them meet again, they will pretty much have the same narrative to exchange.”

There are already signs that Vučić is looking for a direct line to the President. In a recent interview with local media, he said that he expects to meet with Trump in the coming months. “I expect to have that meeting; we will see if it materialises,” he said. “Trump is very busy, and the date is not set in stone yet.”