Jared Kushner’s luxury island plans caused waves in Albania – the ripples have reached Donald Trump

The coastal city of Vlore was, until recently, a secret to many outside of Albania, surrounded by some of the most unspoilt nature reserves in Europe, a haven for rare bird watching and a stop-off on the way to the capital of Tirana.

That was all before Donald Trump’s family showed an interest.

The global spotlight has now been shone on the city, with bemused residents finding themselves at the centre of a political storm involving the presidential hopeful, his daughter and son-in-law, and accusations of foreign corruption.

Earlier this year Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner revealed surprise plans to invest in the Balkans, including in the coastal area of Zvernec just north of Vlore, one on an island near the city, and one in Serbia’s capital Belgrade. In Albania, a country fearful of corruption, residents are suspicious of the plans known locally as “Trump villas”.

The projects will be Kushner’s biggest yet, using his private equity fund Affinity Partners – financed largely by investors in Saudi Arabia. The former top aide to his father-in-law set up the firm after stepping down in 2021.

The overall investment in Albania is expected to exceed a billion dollars, including luxury hotels and villas totalling thousands of new rooms. The island hotel is set to be operated by the exclusive Aman brand, boasting previous guests such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.

But with the US presidential election just weeks away, Kushner’s funding has Democrats concerned. The Senate Finance Committee has dragged the former president into yet another political scandal over fears the project will bring foreign influence on US politics.

Vlore is a typically bustling Balkan city, drawing hundreds of thousands of tourists during the summer months, mainly from eastern Europe and Italy. The promenade stretches along the ocean and the streets are full of sports bars, pizzerias and cheap dentists. Older residents play chess in the squares, surrounded by stray dogs.

On the streets, residents are concerned about the plans – not only their impact on the region’s natural beauty but also the background of their future neighbours. Questions have been raised over how Kushner was chosen for the development with some describing a new cosy relationship between Trump and Albanian prime minister Edi Rama.

With Albania currently ranked among the most corrupt states in Europe, it is no wonder locals are suspicious. As one bar worker, who was unwilling to be named – a common theme on the city streets – says: “In Albania, our criminals either move abroad or get into politics.”

In September this year, former Albanian prime minister Sali Berisha was formally charged with corruption in connection with a property deal – a charge he denies and called politically motivated.

Generations of Albanians remember 1996, when pyramid schemes swallowed almost half of the country’s annual income. Roughly two-thirds of the population invested.

The designs around Vlore, a city with a population of less than 100,000, include several resorts with a reported 10,000 rooms. The first project will be a luxury resort on Albania’s only island, Sazan, a former Soviet stronghold. The other is described as a new city by those who oppose it and will span the beach and forest area of ​​Zvernec.

The plans for the new tourist mega-resorts were first announced in March, shortly after Albania’s parliament changed a law allowing the government to grant construction permits in protected areas for five-star resorts.

Law 21/2024, as it’s officially known, has been heavily criticised by environmentalists, who claim the projects and a new airport nearby will destroy wildlife habitats.

Locals also fear the impact the island’s development will have on jobs. One of the biggest tourist drivers is boat tours around the island. Adverts for trips to Sazan litter the promenade. There are an estimated 50 tourist boats with hundreds of jobs relying on them, but locals fear these will be forced to stop under the luxury plans.

The more paranoid Vlore residents fear giving up a crucial island of defence. “We have two huge wars going on. Now is not the time to give up our best coastal military base,” one local says.

In March this year, Rama was accused of pushing a journalist who asked about the projects.

Agron Shehaj, an opposition party member in the Albanian parliament, told The New York Times the process of choosing a developer had lacked transparency.

Watch: Albania’s PM pushes journalist away during press questions:

The first record of Kushner visiting Albania was with Ivanka Trump in the summer of 2021. He also visited the country in 2023, accompanied not only by his wife but by Richard Grenell, a former Trump administration official who at times served as the US ambassador to Germany, the acting director of national intelligence, and the Trump administration’s presidential envoy for the Western Balkans.

They were pictured with Albanian prime minister Rama in Tirana.

In September, Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden published a letter claiming to reveal details related to the projects, including the fact that Affinity has raised as much as $157m (£120m) in fees from foreign clients — with $87m (£67m) of that coming from the Saudi government.

What’s more, Wyden has claimed that Albanian and Serbian government officials proactively approached the company with proposals for real estate projects in their countries. That news has also raised eyebrows in Albania, a country suspicious of dealings involving the government.

The US Senate Finance Committee went on to raise fears that the Sovereign wealth fund investments will give foreign governments leverage over the Trump family.

It also claimed Affinity has not produced any return on investment as of July 2024.

Wyden requested copies of all communications between Affinity employees and members of the Trump family relating to the projects. The Finance Committee’s investigation is ongoing.

Vlore lies on the south coast of Albania at the meeting point of the Adriatic and Ionian Seas. The country’s third-largest city is proud that the Albanian Declaration of Independence was signed here in 1912. A large monument can be found in the centre celebrating the historic November day.

On the horizon, overlooking the beach bars, is the jewel in the crown of Kushner’s plans: the island of Sazan, referred to locally as “Trump island”.

“Sazan Island is one of the most pristine and unique coastlines I’ve seen anywhere in the world,” Kushner told Bloomberg earlier this year.

Ydjon Vorpsi is a project coordinator for the Protection and Preservation of Natural Environment in Albania (PPNEA) and one of many saying they will fight the plans. He said the project at Zvernec will be more like a city, with thousands of villas, adding that it was “shameful” for a country to sell its only island.

Raising concerns over how the plans came in, Vorpsi said: “When the government changed the protection of areas they paved the legal way for Kushner’s plans, but there are so many gaps in the law.”

He added: “The authorities are representing this as great news, but it’s not. There are so many better opportunities with both the island and the mainland. Taking into consideration all the factors and the importance of the habitat and comparing it to the jobs the development offers to locals, it is nothing. The negative effect on the ecosystem and the people around will be hit hard. All the villages and businesses around will become ghosts to this new city.”

Asked about claims by the US Senate Committee that the Albanian government were the party who approached Affinity, Vorpsi said he wasn’t surprised, adding: “What is happening in Albania is we see the political parties fighting each other over how many investments they can get. The government is based on image. They want the biggest airport in the Balkans, they want big names. In this case, the big name was [Jared] Kushner.”

Vorpsi points to nearby plans for Vlore airport, set to be completed in March 2025, as creating a precedent.

Annette Spangenberg, from the German-based conservation group EuroNatur, said environmentalists are very concerned about the development in general and fear they are promoting mass tourism that is not sustainable, adding they “seem like a big puzzle which comes together piece by piece”.

The letter from Senator Wyden, published in late September, has excited those who oppose the plans, with local media reporting it could cancel them altogether.

Arben Kola, a freelance Albanian tour guide who works across the country, has previously raised fears over the selection and building of “Trump’s villas”.

He says: “Some of the public is blind to the danger these developments bring, people in Vlore don’t want to talk about this out of fear. They can’t raise concerns out of fear of losing their businesses.

“The way tourism works for Sazan at the moment is it helps to preserve nature, not damage it. We shouldn’t change that.”

He adds: “I am a tour guide, I know what kind of tourism brings jobs. These plans will not bring local jobs. We should be developing the island for locals, there are buildings on Sazan that can be redeveloped, we should be presenting them as an important part of our history.”

Earlier this year Vlora’s mayor Ermal Dredha said he welcomed Kushner’s project, telling Reuters he planned to turn the town into a “high-level tourist destination”.

Brunilda Licaj, a lecturer in tourism at the Aleksander Moisiu University, has also welcomed the plans, adding that Albania needs to “evolve” if it wants to reach its tourism potential.

“It’s a good idea for Vlore; it’s a beautiful project. It’s a development for the future. It’s a positive for Albanian people, it is bringing a new sort of tourism to the country and with it new income for the local people,” she said.

Licaj claims there is a drive to bring more yachts to Albania to compete with neighbouring Croatia and Greece. New marinas are being built across Albania, including in Vlore.

Licaj has recently launched a museum in Durres, 90 minutes north of Vlore, revealing a dark side to Albania’s history of tourism. The “Peeping Tourist Museum” exhibits the government’s past of spying on visitors to the country.

For those in the industry, an upcoming surge in Albanian tourism is no surprise. With some hyperbole, it was previously described as the “North Korea of Europe”. With equal hyperbole, it is now described as the “Maldives of the Balkans”.

Earlier this year, Albania’s tourism minister, Mirela Kumbaro, told The Independent: “We are aiming for high-end tourism in Albania.” She said the government is “pushing for four- and five-star hotels with international brand names”.

Time will tell whether Trump and Kushner’s plans will be part of the expansion. Meanwhile, the people of Vlore wait on the outcome of investigations thousands of miles away to have a say in the future of their city.