Grieving Vietnamese Villagers Forced To Exhume Ancestral Graves From Historic Hung Yen Cemetery To Give Way For Trump's $1.5B Golf Complex

Ancestral graves that had lain undisturbed since before the fall of Saigon are being dug up by weeping farming families in northern Vietnam to clear the way for a £1.15 billion ($1.5 billion) Trump-branded golf and luxury resort.

The development, branded Trump International, Vietnam, covers roughly 990 hectares (2,446 acres) of fertile orchards and rice fields in Hung Yen province, about 40 kilometres south-east of Hanoi.

Local authorities have already relocated more than 3,500 graves and issued land-recovery notices across hundreds of hectares, displacing thousands of households in the rush to meet a 2027 completion target. What officials present as a landmark of national prestige has become, for the villagers of Chau Ninh, a painful reckoning over heritage, livelihoods and money.

A Cemetery Dismantled Grave by Grave in Chau Ninh Commune

In the Chau Ninh commune, a decades-old cemetery set among fruit orchards has been pulled apart in stages. Families who have already moved their dead have marked the emptied tombs with large painted 'X' symbols, while other graves remain untouched, their owners refusing to comply. The scene of broken nameplates and disturbed earth was documented by the Financial Times, which spoke to residents wrestling with the spiritual weight of the task.

Hoang Do, 72, told the paper he received 70 million dong, equivalent to around £2,040 ($2,660), to exhume the remains of his son and both of his parents. 'It's painful,' he said. 'I'm outraged by the compensation price.'

For many in the village, the objection runs deeper than the sum on offer, since Vietnamese tradition treats ancestral graves as sacred resting places bound up with filial piety, bloodlines and wartime memory.

Hoang Anh Xa, who has five relatives buried in the affected ground, questioned the entire premise of the clearance. 'The grave of my great-grandparents has been there since 1967, before the establishment of this country,' he said. 'So why should I move them?' Another farmer, Tran Minh Hai, put the resistance plainly: 'It's a spiritual thing. People don't want to disturb the graves.'

A Fistful of Dollars and Rice for Surrendered Farmland

The compensation dispute extends well beyond the cemetery to the farmland itself. In an exclusive investigation from Hung Yen, Reuters reported that authorities flagged reimbursements of between £9 and £22 ($12 and $30) per square metre of farmland, supplemented by payments for uprooted crops and provisions of rice lasting anywhere from two to twelve months. The figures came from five affected farmers and were broadly consistent with one of the documents the agency examined.

Nguyen Thi Huong, 50, said she was told to vacate her 200-square-metre plot in exchange for roughly £2,460 ($3,200) and rice, less than the average annual wage in Vietnam. 'The whole village is worried about this project because it will take our land and leave us jobless,' she told Reuters. Citing six people with direct knowledge and documents it had seen, the agency also reported that developers had cut the overall compensation budget from an early estimate exceeding £384 million ($500 million), without giving a reason for the reduction.

Other villagers described having no leverage at all. 'We have no right to negotiate. That's a shame,' said Do Dinh Huong, who was told his plot would be valued at about $12 per square metre.

Banana farmer Nguyen Thi Chuc, 54, said she might receive around $30 per square metre and feared for her future. 'I'm getting old and can't do anything else other than working on the farm,' she said. Not everyone is opposed, as some local business owners expect the influx of wealthy visitors to lift land values, which one resident said had already risen fivefold since the project was announced.

How a Trade-Sensitive Deal Was Fast-Tracked Through Hanoi

The resort is the Trump Organisation's first venture in Vietnam, announced alongside Hung Yen Hospitality, a subsidiary of the listed developer Kinh Bac City Development Holding Corporation. Under the arrangement, the Vietnamese partners licence the Trump name and the family business will manage the completed club, while stating it is not responsible for the investment or for farmer compensation. The land is being acquired by the state, with developers footing the bill.

Approval moved at remarkable speed. Vietnam fast-tracked the project as it negotiated a crucial trade deal with Washington, against the backdrop of a threatened 46 per cent tariff on Vietnamese exports that was later reduced. At the groundbreaking on 21 May 2025, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh attended alongside Eric Trump and pledged full government backing to hit the deadline.

Eric Trump, executive vice-president of the Trump Organisation, used the ceremony to call the development a 'commitment to excellence' and 'a lasting investment in Vietnam's future,' and has elsewhere described it as the envy of all of Asia and the entire world. Hundreds of farmers reportedly watched the celebration from a dyke overlooking the orchards marked for clearance.

By mid-March 2026, provincial authorities had issued notices to recover more than 508 hectares and, according to figures cited by The Vietnamese Magazine, had already relocated more than 3,500 graves.

Even as residents contest the clearance, the project is being readied for an international market. Vietnamese state media outlet VietnamNet reported in February 2026 that foreigners would be permitted to buy homes at Trump International Hung Yen, underlining the gulf between the luxury estates planned for the site and the farmers being moved off it.

Legal analysts quoted in Vietnamese-language coverage have argued the approval bypassed steps required under the country's own land and consultation rules, a contention that has not been tested in court. Because residents hold only land-use rights rather than outright ownership, their bargaining power collapses once the state decides to recover the land, a structural weakness at the heart of many Vietnamese land disputes.

For the families of Chau Ninh, the fairways and five-star suites promised on their fields will rise over ground their ancestors were forced to leave.