Thousands Protest in Albania Over a $1.4 Billion Resort Linked to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump

Thousands of Albanians have taken to the streets of Tirana in some of the largest demonstrations the country has seen in years, protesting a luxury coastal resort linked to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump, and his wife, Ivanka Trump.

The protests escalated this week after videos circulated showing bulldozers operating on beaches in the Narta Lagoon area, a protected wetland on Albania's southern coast. On Wednesday, police fired water cannons and clashed with demonstrators who had gathered outside the office of Prime Minister Edi Rama, some waving inflatable flamingos and holding signs reading "nation is not for sale" and "I don't want Albania like Dubai."

The project, estimated at 1.4 billion euros (about $1.2 billion), has two parts: a development in the Vjosa-Narta protected area and a separate resort on the uninhabited island of Sazan, a former communist-era military base. The Kushner-linked venture, advanced through his investment firm Affinity Partners, envisions transforming the sites into high-end tourist destinations. Rama has championed the plan, telling critics, "Albania should not be a country that fears an extraordinary project like this one," and vowing, "There is no chance for this investment to stop as long as I am here."

Opponents see an ecological and democratic crisis. The Vjosa-Narta wetland is home to flamingos, seals and sea-turtle nesting sites, and environmental organizations have demanded the project's suspension, warning of irreversible damage to biodiversity. The Narta Lagoon sits within a designated wildlife reserve, and campaigners argue that building hotels there would gut protections that took years to secure.

The controversy deepened when Albania's Special Prosecution Against Corruption and Organized Crime, known as SPAK, said it had opened an investigation into the funds used to acquire the land titles and their subsequent sale to investors. The inquiry adds a legal cloud to a venture already politically combustible because of its ties to the U.S. president's family.

For Kushner, the Albania project is part of a broader post-White House push into international real estate and investment, much of it financed by Gulf capital, that critics say blurs the line between private business and the family's political prominence. Ivanka Trump has spoken publicly about her affection for the Albanian coast, which the couple is said to have first encountered on vacation.

Rama's government has staked political capital on attracting foreign investment to fuel tourism, one of Albania's fastest-growing industries. But the scale of the backlash — and the corruption probe — suggests the Sazan and Narta developments may become a defining test of how far the government can go in courting Trump-connected money over the objections of its own citizens.