How the Kushner Deal Was Made: From a Yacht to a $6 Billion Agreement in Secret

The deal that set Albania on fire was not made in a parliament. It was not put to voters. It was not advertised, consulted on, or submitted to any environmental review before it began moving. It was made on a yacht, refined in meetings with a prime minister eager for political cover with Washington, and rubber-stamped by a government that changed its own laws to make it easier.

THE BEGINNING: A YACHT AND A FINANCIER

According to reporting by Al Jazeera and France 24, Jared Kushner first learned about Albania's Adriatic coastline through Nat Rothschild, the Anglo-American financier. Rothschild introduced Kushner to the sites and to Albanian officials, facilitating what would become the largest foreign private investment proposal in Albanian history. Rothschild has extensive business interests in the Balkans and in Albania, making him an effective broker between American private equity and a government looking for powerful friends.

THE STRUCTURE: ATLANTIC INCUBATION PARTNERS

The project is structured through Atlantic Incubation Partners LLC, a company linked to Kushner's private equity fund Affinity Partners. Affinity Partners was founded by Kushner in 2021 after leaving the White House. Its most prominent known investment fund received $2 billion from the Saudi Public Investment Fund — a transaction that raised questions from members of Congress about Kushner's relationships with Gulf states while he had served as a senior White House adviser. The Albania deal appears to follow a similar pattern: political access, followed by investment opportunity, followed by a government partner that fast-tracks approvals.

THE TWO SITES

The deal covers two separate but connected areas of protected Albanian coast. The first is Sazan Island — a former military island at the entrance to Vlora Bay that was used as a communist-era naval and military base. It sits within the Karaburun-Sazan Marine National Park. The proposed deal for Sazan Island is reportedly valued at approximately $1.4 billion. The second site is the coastal landscape at Zvërnec and Vjosa-Narta — a legally protected wetland on the Adriatic coast. This is home to Mediterranean flamingos, Dalmatian pelicans, loggerhead sea turtles and the endangered Mediterranean monk seal. The coastal resort component is reportedly valued at approximately $4.7 billion. Together, the two projects represent roughly $6.1 billion — an extraordinary sum for a country whose entire GDP is approximately $25 billion.

THE TIMING: AFTER TRUMP WINS

The Albanian government granted strategic investor status to Atlantic Incubation Partners in late 2024. According to multiple reports, the Sazan Island component was formally approved in January 2025 — approximately two months after Donald Trump won the US presidential election, and just days before his inauguration on January 20. Critics have noted the timing explicitly: the Albanian government of Edi Rama appeared to rush approvals for the Trump family's business partner in the weeks between election day and inauguration, at the moment when goodwill toward the incoming administration would be most valuable. No Albanian politician has publicly explained the urgency.

WHAT STRATEGIC INVESTOR STATUS MEANS

In Albania, "strategic investor" status is not a routine business permit. It is a political designation that unlocks special government support — fast-track access through ministries, exemptions from standard administrative procedures, and direct coordination at the prime ministerial level. Critics argue that this designation was used to bypass the normal environmental review, public consultation and permitting processes that would apply to any other developer. Ivanka Trump herself publicly announced the Sazan Island project in 2024, and Kushner later confirmed his firm's involvement.

NO PERMITS, NO EIA, NO PUBLIC PROCESS

As of June 2026, no completed environmental impact assessment (EIA) for either project component has been published. No public consultation has been held. No official project contracts have been released to the public. No detailed plans have been submitted to independent technical review. Despite this, by April 2026, bulldozers were already clearing land in the protected Vjosa-Narta area. Heavy machinery had opened access roads, erected fencing, and begun land clearing — all inside a legally protected landscape, and all without any of the documents that Albanian law requires before construction can begin.

THE QATARI BROTHERS

Financing and construction of the resort is being handled by brothers Moutaz and Ramez Al-Khayyat, Qatari businessmen with a track record of luxury tourism developments in the Middle East and North Africa. Their company Albania Land Development purchased land along the protected coastline. On June 2, 2026, Albanian anti-corruption prosecutors (SPAK) froze the bank accounts of Albania Land Development as part of an investigation into fraudulent property titles — meaning the very land base of the project is under criminal investigation for potentially illegal acquisition.

WHY ALBANIANS ARE ANGRY

The anger is not, at its core, about Jared Kushner being American. It is about process. It is about the fact that $6 billion of protected public coastline and a legally protected wetland ecosystem were committed to a private investment firm — in secret, without permits, without environmental review, without public consultation, and with a law change to make it easier — and that when Albanians went to the beach to ask why, they were met by private security guards who assaulted them while police watched. That is not investment. That is confiscation. And Albanians know the difference.