More than a decade after Donald J. Trump first floated the idea of developing a Trump hotel on a government-owned site in Serbia, his family is now close to securing that dream in a complicated deal that also involves a real estate magnate from Abu Dhabi and Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law.
The plan illustrates the continued ambitions of Mr. Trump’s family to forge new international deals, even as he has returned to the White House. It also reflects a diminished focus, compared with that of his first term, on avoiding the appearance of a conflict of interest associated with the overseas projects.
A Trump-branded luxury hotel is slated to rise on the site of the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense in Belgrade, which was bombed by NATO in 1999 and has been largely vacant since. It is an idea that Mr. Trump initially proposed in 2013, and that Mr. Kushner started to pursue after he left his job as a White House aide during Mr. Trump’s first term.
Mr. Kushner has formed a partnership with Mohamed Alabbar, the developer of the Burj Khalifa hotel in Dubai, the world’s tallest structure. They plan to build the new hotel on the Belgrade site with a lease on the property from the government of Serbia, which will share in the profits, according to a draft of the agreement.
This would be the first large-scale real estate project between the Trump Organization and the Kushner family. Even though the two have long been in the business in New York, they have previously pursued separate projects.
The hotel deal in Serbia is one of several recently announced new outlets of the Trump brand, with other projects disclosed in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.
