American entrepreneur Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former President Donald Trump, intends to implement two tourism projects in Albania and one in Serbia.
Kushner’s plans in the Balkans seem to have come in part through relationships built while Trump was in office, writes ” The New York Times” .
One of the proposed projects would be to develop an island off the coast of Albania into a luxury tourist destination. Both of these first two projects involve land now controlled by governments, meaning an agreement would have to be finalized with foreign governments.
A third project, also in Albania, would be built on the Zvërnec peninsula, a 1,000-hectare coastal area in southern Albania that is part of the tourist community known as Vlorë, where several hotels and hundreds of villas would be built.
Kushner’s participation will be through his investment firm, Affinity Partners, which has $2 billion in funding from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, among other foreign investors. In a statement, an Affinity Partners official said it had not been determined whether Saudi funds could be part of any projects Kushner is considering in the Balkans.
“We’re very excited,” Mr. Kushner said in an interview. “We haven’t finalized these deals, so they may not happen, but we’ve been working hard and we’re very close.”
Kushner started his investment company after leaving his job at the White House as a senior adviser. He capitalized on the relationships he had built in government negotiations in the Middle East, which included a close relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia.
Trump’s son-in-law ended up securing $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and hundreds of millions more from wealth funds in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. He has taken few public steps so far to actually invest large chunks of this money.
Grenell also made valuable connections while in government, including some that appear to have given the Kushner team an inside track on investments in the Balkans. During his time in the Trump administration, Grenell worked on resolving disputes between Serbia and Kosovo. These discussions indirectly involved Albania, as the majority of Kosovo’s citizens are ethnic Albanians and Albania plays a role in regional discussions.
The Trump family’s involvement in foreign business deals became a major focus during Trump’s tenure, with critics eventually suing and claiming the family was illegally benefiting from foreign payments — referred to as gratuities in the Constitution — while Trump was in office. . Those cases were dismissed as moot by the Supreme Court when Trump left office, but they could be reopened if he were to return to the White House.
Since leaving office, Trump has become a partner in a development project in Oman, a deal he secured from a Saudi real estate firm with ties to the Saudi government. Kushner rejected any suggestion that he was getting preferential treatment because of his time in government, or that any of the jobs were related to the former president.
“No one is ‘handing me’ a deal, ” said Mr. Kushner, who insisted he was not planning to return to Washington if his father-in-law won the presidency again.
“I operate very carefully and these investments will create a lot of value for local communities, our partners and our investors,”he added.
The New York Times first approached Kushner on Wednesday morning about his upcoming projects in the Balkans. He initially declined to answer questions, responding only after revealing his plans to Bloomberg News on Friday.
Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, visited Albania. They traveled the country with Grenell, and even met with the Prime Minister of Albania.
Kushner has focused in part on Sazan, a Mediterranean island south of Albania that until the end of the Cold War was used by the Soviet Union and the Communists. The Government of Albania as a secret military base for submarines. The plan is to build a hotel and luxury villas on the island.
The rugged two-square-mile island has hundreds of Cold War-era bunkers and tunnels designed to withstand nuclear attacks and has been largely empty since the end of the Soviet Union. But it’s only half an hour by speedboat from Vlora, a tourist destination in southern Albania where the Saudi Arabian government is already spending money to improve electricity service and other public services to help promote tourism in Albania.
Grenell has been busy trying to turn the relationships he built in Albania and elsewhere in the Balkans into personal gains. He has repeatedly returned to the region and met with leaders of the hotel industry, as well as with the Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama.
Last July, Mr. Grenell together with Ivanka Trump and Mr. Kushner also met with Mr. Rama in Tirana, the capital of Albania, and they were all photographed together.
Rama has been “pressing” for nearly a decade to open Sazan to redevelopment as a tourist destination, as well as seeking other ways to attract foreign investors to Albania to expand its tourism economy.
Auron Tare, a former member of the Albanian parliament who has served as an adviser to Rama, took Mrs. Trump and Kushner to the island of Sazan in 2021 as part of a visit to Albania that included a yacht cruise and a trip by helicopter across the coast.
Tare, in an interview, said he has discussed with Kushner and Trump the desire to develop Sazan, but to do so in a way that would preserve its history and environment. They have worked closely with a billionaire Albanian business executive named Shefqet Kastrati and his son, Musa Kastrati. Their investments include a concession to run the international airport in Tirana, a chain of gas stations in Albania and hotels and other businesses, according to business associates and Kushner.
“They have helped us understand the cost of construction and how to operate locally ,” Kushner said in an interview.
In October 2022, Shefqet Kastrati bought a $7.5 million home in Indian Creek, land records show, a property that is close to where Trump’s son-in-law and daughter now live. The Kastrati family also last year bought a hotel in the Brickell section of Miami for $55 million from the Qatari royal family.
Musa Kastrati, in an interview, said the role his family company would play in Kushner’s Albanian projects was not yet clear, but would probably include helping to build some of the complexes. Kastrati also confirmed that in December 2022 he visited Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort and residence, with Grenell and that he also briefly met Trump when the former president arrived while they were having dinner. Kastrati said that he has not discussed the possible agreement with Trump.
The government of Saudi Arabia recently announced that it was looking for ways to increase its investment in Albania, first by helping to build water, electricity and sewerage services near beach areas in Vlora, which is the departure point for Sazan and where a new international airport. is already being built. She has said that she wants to invest up to 300 million dollars in the country. Earlier this month, Saudi officials traveled to Albania to announce the creation of what they call the Saudi-Albania Business Council
AL in Sweden. 