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- President's Son Blurs the Lines In Serbia Visit
President's Son Blurs the Lines In Serbia Visit
Supporting a leader, with a hotel in play
Matt Davis
March 20, 2025
For those of you who are new here, I read the top story in the New York Times every morning so that you don’t have to. If you were forwarded this, you can subscribe here. I’m also doing a five-minute video version of this, each morning at around 9 a.m. (depending on how long it takes me to read the newspaper). If you’d like to follow me on LinkedIn (you can always watch the recording later). If you subscribe to my Youtube channel it’ll also send you a notification when I’m “going live.”
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That red countertop makes it look like I’m reading the paper at the Defense Ministry in Belgrade!
This morning’s lead story by Eric Lipton focuses on a recent trip by Donald Trump, Jr., to Serbia, where he appears to have propped up the country’s leader, President Aleksander Vucic — despite huge protests against him — and negotiated over a huge new Trump hotel in downtown Belgrade.
“Mr. Trump used the visit as an opportunity to express his support for Mr. Vucic — a trip that offered perhaps the most explicit mixing so far in President Trump’s second term of U.S. foreign policy and the Trump family’s financial interests.”
You’ll recall that Donald Trump, Sr. was up in arms over Hunter Biden trying to do business in Ukraine, trading on his father’s name. In this case, however, not so much.
Mr. Vucic is now facing one of the biggest tests of his nearly eight years as president. Protests against his administration erupted in November after the collapse of a concrete structure atop a railway station walkway that killed 15, an accident that demonstrators blamed in part on government corruption.
The visit by Mr. Trump last week had brought a brief pause in those troubles and immediately became national news in Serbia, with Mr. Vucic and his top advisers pointing to it as a sign that the Trump administration supports Mr. Vucic, despite the growing protests in the streets of the capital.
Here’s Mr. Vucic on social media, using his association with Don Jr. to bolster his image.
Nevertheless, Don Jr.’s people “dismissed any suggestion that his visit created a conflict of interest.”
That’s despite the visit being organized by Brad Parscale, a former Trump campaign manager. And you’ll notice Don Jr. taking the story very seriously, dispatching a spokesman to promote his podcast, “Triggered.” Say, who on earth would dare promote a podcast around here, eh?
“Don hosts one of the biggest political podcasts in the world and was in Serbia strictly in his capacity as a podcast host for an interview,” Andy Surabian, Don Jr.’s spokesman, said. “He was in and out of the country in less than eight hours and at no point had any discussions with anyone relating to Trump Org.”
Others in the country had “quite a different view,” the Times reports.
“The son of President Trump is here to try to give Vucic a helping hand,” said Dragan Jonic, an opposition-party member of Serbia’s parliament. “It is obviously a conflict of interest, as Vucic is trying to hold on to power and the Trumps want to keep their real estate deal alive.”
And here’s an ethicist.
Virginia Canter, a former ethics adviser to the International Monetary Fund, said that Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with the Serbian president was reminiscent of activity by Hunter Biden, who was accused by Republicans of leveraging the position of his father, Joseph R. Biden Jr., as vice president to make lucrative overseas business deals.
“It is kind of the height of hypocrisy that they were concerned about Hunter Biden’s foreign work,” said Ms. Canter, who also served as an ethics lawyer in the Clinton White House and now works at a nonprofit group called State Democracy Defenders Action, which has been critical of Mr. Trump.
In Ms. Canter’s view, the conflict of interest in Donald Trump Jr.’s case is more explicit.
“Don Jr., as a surrogate for his father, is using the public office of the president of the United States to help the president of Serbia stay in office — while furthering the Trump family’s personal financial interest,” she said. “It is unethical. It’s offensive.”
The height of hypocrisy, of course, is about 6-foot-three and weighs 220 lbs. Or maybe it wears lifts in its shoes and has been on the Ozempic lately. You choose.
Meanwhile the Trump organization, as opposed to the presidential administration of the United States, is seeking to build a 175-room Trump hotel with 1,500 luxury apartments and other amenities at the former defense ministry site in Belgrade.
With protest against Mr. Vucic on the rise, it’s possible the Trump Organization may lose its hotel. What’s perhaps most concerning about the story is the shamelessness of the corruption. This is an obvious attempt by the President’s son to profit from his father’s popularity on behalf of the whole family. It’s on the front page of the U.S. paper of record and yet will much change as a result of the reporting? I’m not so sure.
The Trump family’s evident support of Mr. Vucic is much appreciated, the Serbian president made clear, adding that he believes it is part of the reason President Trump is so popular in Serbia.
“This was the country where Trump was enjoying the biggest popularity in the entire Europe by far,” Mr. Vucic said. “I’m not flattering him or I’m not flattering you. I’m saying what people here think.”
Protests in Serbia against Mr. Vucic have erupted ever since.
That’s a lot of people looking annoyed, eh? Imagine if such a thing happened here…
Matt Davis lives in Manhattan with his wife and child.