Vučić Trump Tower Belgrade: secret presidency meeting behind collapsed project and abuse of office indictment
Serbia's president Aleksandar Vučić personally convened a 2024 presidency meeting where heritage officials were pressed to strip the General Staff building's protected status for a $500m Trump-branded tower backed by Jared Kushner, a Guardian investigation reports - the secret role in the Vučić Trump Tower Belgrade affair that the subsequent indictment never mentions. Kushner's company abandoned the project in December 2025 after Vučić's culture minister was indicted for abuse of office.
Vučić Trump Tower Belgrade: secret presidency meeting behind collapsed project and abuse of office indictment
The criminal case over the Belgrade Trump tower site is believed to be the first to result from the Trump family's global moneymaking campaign, which critics describe as a "pay to play" arrangement. Now an investigation by the Guardian, built on interviews and leaked documents, reports that in the Vučić Trump Tower Belgrade affair the president summoned officials to a meeting at his presidential offices - a meeting the subsequent indictment never mentions.
The meeting at the presidency
On 6 February 2024, Dubravka Đukanović, director of Serbia's institute for the protection of cultural monuments, arrived for a meeting at the presidency, a domed former royal palace. The subject was the General Staff building, the former Yugoslav defence ministry in central Belgrade, which Nato bombed in 1999 during its campaign to force Milošević to withdraw from Kosovo.
Vučić had reaffirmed the building's legally protected status in 2016. Yet at the February 2024 meeting he asked Đukanović to rescind that protection, saying an unspecified "foreign investor" was keen on the site, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting. Under Serbian law, stripping the protected status required an expert opinion commissioned by her institute concluding that the protection was no longer merited.
The two people with knowledge of the meeting said Vučić told Đukanović and another heritage official they were lazy and incompetent, in an unpleasant tone. The message, they said, was to do what he wanted or resign.
From lease to indictment
What followed, step by step, is laid out in leaked documents and the indictment itself:
- In March 2024, a leaked agreement showed Serbian authorities had granted Kushner's company a 99-year lease over the General Staff site, free of charge.
- A contract dated 13 May 2024, seen by the Guardian, committed Serbia to removing the site's "cultural heritage designation" "to the satisfaction" of Kushner's company.
- The week after that contract, finance minister Siniša Mali urged Đukanović and Belgrade heritage chief Olivera Vučković to cancel the protected status, according to the indictment's summary of their testimony.
- The women refused, believing the legal conditions were not met, and were told to resign.
- After Vučić returned from a US trip, police arrested Goran Vasić, installed as heritage institute head to replace Đukanović; prosecutors said he forged a supportive expert opinion to cancel the protected status.
- In December 2025, Vučić's culture minister was indicted for abuse of office for his alleged part in the General Staff scheme.
Aleksandar Jovanović Ćuta, the environmental activist who revealed the lease agreement, said: "Serbia is not a buffet, and Vučić is not a waiter. This is not his private property."
Đukanović and Vučković confirmed the accuracy of the account in the indictment. In her resignation letter, Đukanović wrote that she could not agree to inappropriate interventions that would permanently destroy all the values of the complex, which she described as of incalculable importance for preserving enduring creative values, educating future generations and strengthening Serbian cultural identity. She added: "I prefer not to make any statement on this matter while the court proceedings are ongoing."
The indictment makes no reference to the president's earlier meeting at the presidency, even though, according to the Guardian's reporting, Vučić himself led the meeting where the alleged scheme was discussed.
The Trump-Kushner venture and the denials
According to his spokesperson, Kushner had been looking at the project since 2021, and posted an image of the design on X, professing himself "excited". Ten days after Trump beat Kamala Harris in November 2024, Vučić's government announced that the General Staff site had been stripped of its protected status. In January 2025, four days after the inauguration, Eric Trump announced the Trumps and Kushners' first joint venture: the Belgrade hotel and tower would bear the Trump name.
Eric Trump told the New York Times: "It's going to be fun to bring the family together. Serbia is one of the fastest-growing countries in Europe, and we're incredibly honoured to be there."
Kushner, who had travelled to Belgrade for a meeting Vučić called "inspiring", said: "Our research showed that the Trump brand would be the best for this market."
Representatives of the Trumps and Kushner said they had no part in removing the building's protected status and that it would be "false" to say the Belgrade project was part of a "pay to play" scheme.
For his part, Vučić threatened reprisals over the prosecution, calling the prosecutors "corrupt gangs" who "fabricated cases". He said: "We have lost an exceptional investment. I will personally ensure that everyone who participated in causing this damage is held accountable." He did not respond to requests for comment.
Politics after the collapse
Days before the site lost its protection, the collapse of a canopy at Novi Sad railway station killed 16 people and triggered rolling protests against graft; the student organisers' slogan became "Serbia or mafia". Serbia now holds an election on 25 October 2026, when Vučić will seek to extend his 12 years in power amid that mass protest movement spurred by government corruption.
Because of his snap election call, a hearing at which witnesses might reveal details of Vučić's involvement will not take place until after the vote. Within days of the December 2025 indictment, Kushner's company announced the project would not proceed "at this time".
