{"id":456,"date":"2026-06-08T20:10:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T20:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=456"},"modified":"2026-06-08T20:10:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T20:10:46","slug":"the-key-to-fighting-a-trump-real-estate-deal-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=456","title":{"rendered":"The Key to Fighting a Trump Real Estate Deal: Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Some Trumpian construction <\/span>projects go smoothy. In Vietnam, for example, the government has relocated hundreds residents to make room for a $1.5 billion-dollar Trump-branded mega-resort, and that project is well underway. But elsewhere in the world, the first family\u2019s real estate deals don\u2019t always go according to plan.<\/p>

Read more They Went to Jared<\/a><\/p>\n

In recent days, Albania has been rocked by widespread protests that have shaken the foundation of the ruling prime minister\u2019s 13-year tenure. The trigger for the unrest: A luxury resort that Trump\u2019s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kusher are developing in the Balkan nation\u2014and allegations that the Albanian government may have improperly ignored migratory bird routes when approving the 10,000-room project.<\/p>\n

What accounts for the disparate fates of the Trump family\u2019s various international ventures? There are likely many factors, but one is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: democracy.<\/p>\n

In the last couple years, the president\u2019s Trump Organization has announced a flood of overseas projects\u2014in Georgia, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, Romania, Australia, Vietnam, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and India. At the same time, Ivanka and Jared have announced their own plans for a Trump-branded development in Serbia and the non-Trump-branded resort in Albania.<\/p>\n

The backlash to those latter two projects\u2014the Kushner deals in Serbia and Albania\u2014has been particularly volatile; news of Trump family involvement and possible government intervention to move those deals along has sparked massive demonstrations. And a separate proposal to build a Trump tower that would have become the \u201ctallest building in Australia\u201d quickly fell apart amid a feeding frenzy by Australia\u2019s boisterous free press.<\/p>\n

By contrast, in countries like Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Qatar, Oman, and the UAE, Trump World projects seem to have coasted along breezily, without much pushback from pesky protesters. This probably shouldn\u2019t be surprising. Saudi Arabia is, in the words of the watchdog organization Freedom House, an absolute monarchy that \u201crestricts almost all political rights and civil liberties\u201d and \u201crelies on pervasive surveillance [and] the criminalization of dissent.\u201d The Kingdom has recently executed people for \u201coffenses related to their participation in protests and demonstrations when they were still minors.\u201d Freedom House gives Saudi Arabia a freedom score of 9 out of 100, among the lowest in the world.<\/p>\n

In Oman\u2014another absolute monarchy, with a Freedom House score of 24\u2014the Trump Organization has partnered with a Saudi developer and the Omani government to secure land in a prime location overlooking the Persian Gulf (not far from the war-ravaged Strait of Hormuz). Several of the other countries with new Trump-related real estate projects have similarly abysmal human rights records. Out of the possible 100 points, Freedom House gives the UAE, Qatar, and Vietnam scores of 18, 25, and 20, respectively.<\/p>\n

The current situation in Albania\u2014Freedom House score of 69\u2014is very different from its autocratic counterparts. Jared and Ivanka\u2019s project there was announced as a double resort, one on the mainland coast and the other on a remote island in the Adriatic. The two properties are ostensibly in private hands, but both seem to require significant government assent\u2014environmentalists say both sites are ecologically sensitive, and the island is a former Albanian military base, covered with concrete blockhouses and landmines.<\/p>\n

The Balkan nation\u2019s elected prime minister, Edi Rama, has been full-throated in his support for the project. But Albania \u201chas a record of competitive elections\u201d and freedom of assembly is \u201cgenerally respected,\u201d according to Freedom House. And indeed, public opposition is spiraling. The growing protest movement has been dubbed \u201cthe Flamingo Revolution,\u201d in reference to the bird protesters say could be harmed if redevelopment goes forward. Albania\u2019s official anti-corruption agency has announced that it is probing whether changes to the resort area\u2019s environmental and zoning regulations in 2024 were suspicious. And there has been outrage over videos of security guards allegedly assaulting protesters.<\/p>

Read more How the Flamingo Became a Potent Protest Symbol<\/a><\/p>\n

Rama, who has faced calls for his resignation, says he won\u2019t back down from supporting Kushner. \u201cThere is no chance for this investment to stop as long as I am here,\u201d Rama said recently, accusing protesters of antisemitism and disinformation.<\/p>\n

He also seemed to align the rationale for his 13-year rule with the success of the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do I need power for if I have to abandon the vision I have shared with you all these years?\u201d Rama declared in a public speech on Wednesday. \u201cWe must enter the Champions League of global tourism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it was not Jared, they would not give a shit about what is happening in Albania,\u201d Rama told Politico<\/em> on Friday.<\/p>\n

But critics of the plan point to what happened to a similar project proposed by Kushner, meant for an abandoned military site in nearby Serbia (Freedom House score 53). That deal, which would have created a Trump-branded hotel tower, eventually collapsed after protests and an investigation by Serbia\u2019s anti-corruption agency. Four individuals have been criminally charged in the ensuing scandal\u2014including the country\u2019s culture minister, who is currently on trial.<\/p>\n

Neither Serbia nor Albania get particularly high<\/em> marks from democracy advocates. Both countries are categorized as \u201cpartly free\u201d by Freedom House and as \u201cflawed democracies\u201d by the Economist Intelligence Unit. But this type of open, and potentially consequential, public protest movement is virtually impossible in other, far more authoritarian countries where the Trumps are building.<\/p>\n

Notably, the United States\u2019 own Freedom House score ticked down from 84 to 81 during the first year of Trump\u2019s second term. But the US remains \u201cfree,\u201d and anti-Trump protests here show no signs of stopping.<\/p>

Read more Inside Delaney Hall\u2019s Black Box<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a reason the first family\u2019s construction projects go more smoothly in Saudi Arabia than in Albania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Key to Fighting a Trump Real Estate Deal: Democracy - Moving and Mortgage Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=456\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Key to Fighting a Trump Real Estate Deal: Democracy - Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There\u2019s a reason the first family\u2019s construction projects go more smoothly in Saudi Arabia than in Albania.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=456\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-08T20:10:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/803d808894d24519b207774d27fd71c1.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1124\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=456#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=456\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/6b7c79bcfd888d98f34c5413df7e81a2\"},\"headline\":\"The Key to Fighting a Trump Real Estate Deal: Democracy\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-08T20:10:46+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=456\"},\"wordCount\":948,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=456#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/08419e5dcf9d61016bf843733237fd44.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=456#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=456\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=456\",\"name\":\"The Key to Fighting a Trump Real Estate Deal: Democracy - 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