The protests against President Aleksandar Vucic from Serbia had grown in intensity and size when an unusual guest appeared in his capital this month to meet the controversial European leader: Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of President Trump.
Mr. Trump's quick visit, including a meeting with Mr Vucic to talk about American foreign help to Serbia, came as the Trump and Jared Kushner family, the son -in -law of the US president, ahead of plans to build a Trump International Hotel in Belgrade, the first such property in Europe.
The hotel is planned to be built on top of the former Yugoslavian Ministry of Defense, which was bombed 26 years ago by NATO on land that is now owned by the Serbian government. Opposition leaders in Serbia criticized the agreement and called on it to be terminated, which increased the prospect that the deal could be pronounced in power change.
Mr. Trump used the visit as an opportunity to express his support to Mr Vucic – a journey that perhaps offered the most explicit mix so far in the second term of President Trump of the American foreign policy and the financial interests of the Trump.
On Wednesday, the Serbian Parliament accepted the dismissal of its prime minister, as a result of which the board was taken down and Mr Vucic forced to form a new government or to hold new parliamentary elections later this year, creating more uncertainty there.
A spokesperson for Donald Trump Jr. rejected any suggestion that his visit created a conflict of interest. The spokesperson said the trip was driven by a plan to interview Mr. Vucic for Mr. Trump's podcast, so as not to go into issues of foreign relations or the real estate deal.
“Don organizes one of the largest political podcasts in the world and was strictly in Serbia in his capacity as Podcast -Gastheer for an interview,” said Andy Surabian, the spokesperson. “He was in and out of the country in less than eight hours and had never had any discussions with anyone with regard to Trump org.”
The visit, according to two people aware of the plan, was arranged by Brad Parscale, a former campaign leader for President Trump.
Mr. Parscale, a director of a conservative podcast and radio broadcasting company, also founded a political campaign consultancy. He had the advice of Mr. Vucic threw during his re -election campaign of 2022, but claimed that he was not hired.
Mr. Vucic is now confronted with one of the largest tests of his almost eight years as president. Protests against his administration broke out in November after the collapse of a concrete structure on top of a walkway of the train station in which 15 was killed, an accident that demonstrators partially blamed the government corruption.
Mr. Trump's visit had brought a short break last week and immediately became national news in Serbia, in which Mr Vucic and his top advisers point out as a sign that the Trump government supports Mr Vucic, despite the growing protests in the streets of the capital.
“A warm conversation with Donald Trump Jr., the son of US President Donald Trump about bilateral relations between Serbia and the US and the current topics that form the global political and economic scene,” wrote Mr. Vucic in a social media placed after the meeting.
Marko Djuric, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, added after Mr Trump's visit in a television interview that the presence of President Trump's son “offers a big momentum for an excellent start of relations with the new administration.”
Others in the country had a completely different picture.
“President Trump's son is here to try to give Vucic a helping hand,” said Dragan Jonic, a member of the opposition parties of the Parliament of Serbia. “It is clearly a conflict of interest, because Vucic tries to hold power and the Trumps want to keep their real estate deal alive.”
The government of Mr Vucic signed an agreement last May with Affinity Global Development, a company founded by Mr. Kushner. The company is planning to invest $ 500 million to build a Trump Hotel with 175 rooms with 1500 luxury apartments and other facilities on the former site of the Ministry of Defense in Belgrade.
“We are pleased to extend our presence to Europe,” said Eric Trump, another of the sons of President Trump, in January, when the recording of an international hotel in Trump in the project was first announced. Eric Trump is the leading family member who runs his real estate company.
But Donald Trump Jr. Is also an executive vice -president at the Trump organization, which operates the hotels, golf courses and other assets of the family and helps to plan the Serbian hotel project.
Two people who were informed about the journey of Donald Trump Jr., but they spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly, said Mr Trump was not paid for making the trip. But his airline tickets, and that of his girlfriend, Bettina Anderson, was covered by Mr. Parscale, who has established a business partner in Serbia. Mr. Parscale refused to comment or to announce the name of his Serbian business partner.
Virginia Canter, a former ethical adviser to the International Monetary Fund, said that the meeting of Donald Trump Jr. With the Serbian President, Hunter Biden, accused by Republicans of using the function of his father, Joseph R. Biden Jr., as a vice -president to make lucrative overseas business deals.
“It is a bit the highlight of Hypocrisis that they were concerned about the foreign work of Hunter Biden,” said Mrs. Canter, who also served as an ethical lawyer in the Clinton White House and now works with a non -profit group called State Democracy Defenders Action, who has been critical of Mr Trump.
According to Mrs Canter's opinion, the conflict of interest in the case of Donald Trump Jr. more explicit.
“Don Jr., as a surrogate for his father, uses the public office of the President of the United States to help the president of Serbia stay in office – while promoting the personal financial interest of the Trump family,” she said. “It's unethical. It's offensive.”
It remains unclear how much the presence of Mr Trump in Serbia helped Mr. Vucic.
A few days after the visit, the streets of Central Belgrade were stuck with more than 100,000 protesters for what organizers called one of the greatest protests in the history of the country.
Mr Vucic's government offered the Trump family a deal last year, while President Trump applied for re-election, to gain access to the most important development site of real estate in the middle of Belgrade.
The government leases the site to Mr. Kushner's real estate partnership for 99 years, according to Serbian officials. Affinity Global Development, The Kushner Affiliate, has agreed in exchange to build the hotel and luxury apartments in a partnership with Mohamed Alabbar, a business director of the United Arab Emirates.
Donald J. Trump, before he was first chosen as president and while he still had the family-Estate-Business, he had first considered building a hotel on this exact site in 2013 and traveled to Belgrade's Trump organization to inspect the location. The project did not come together before Mr. Trump's elections in 2016, but Mr. Kushner brought it into a new life last year, while Mr. Trump ran back to the office.
The hotel project had generated protests in Belgrade on a smaller scale, even before the awning of the fatal train station at the end of last year.
Opposition leaders such as Mr Jonic argued that the former site of the Ministry of Defense was symbolic because it was attacked by NATO troops led by the United States in 1999 when Serbia and her neighbor Montenegro were part of Yugoslavia. It should not be transferred to American developers who are looking for a profit, the opposition leaders said.
“Can you imagine an American president, every president who gives West Point as a gift to an offshore company, just to demolish it and build a hotel?” Aleksandar Jovanovic, a member of the Parliament of Serbia, said last year when the deal was negotiated, referring to the US military academy.
“You should have a lively imagination to imagine that. Unfortunately, what is unthinkable in America is a tragic reality in Serbia,” he said at the time.
Donald Trump Jr., next to the layout of the center of Belgrade by the President of Serbia, held an almost hour interview with Mr. Vucic that has been broadcast on the podcast of Mr Trump in recent days, “Triggered”.
During the interview, Mr Trump compared the protests in response to the train station of November to criticize the January 6, 2021, attack by the supporters of his father at the Capitol in Washington.
“It was armed later,” said Mr Trump during the interview, before he continues with theories raised by Trump aldermen, related to events in Washington “like ours, you know, January 6 turned into something that it was not, to potentially even put on a revolution.”
Mr. Trump and Mr Vucic also spoke about Russia and the war in Ukraine and the work of Mr Vucic with President Trump during his first term.
They both separately claimed that the financing of the American international development Agency, which the Trump government has reduced in the last two months, had been used incorrectly by some non -profit groups in Serbia to play a role in the protests, although neither offered proof of this accusation.
The clear support of the Trump family to Mr Vucic is greatly appreciated, the Serbian president has been made clear, adding that he believes that it is part of the reason that President Trump is so popular in Serbia.
“This was the country where Trump was by far the greatest popularity in the entire Europe,” Mr Vucic said. “I don't flatter him or I don't flatter you. I say what people think here.”
Andrew Higgins contributed reporting.
