• Reuters – Exclusive: Fistful of dollars and rice for Vietnam farmers displaced for $1.5 billion Trump golf club
• Independent – Vietnam bypassing its own laws to fast-track $1.5B Trump golf resort amid tariffs threat, report says

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Exclusive: Fistful of dollars and rice for Vietnam farmers displaced for $1.5 billion Trump golf club

By Khanh Vu and Francesco Guarascio

Reuters – August 11, 20259:02 AM GMT+7

[1/4]A farmer works at the site designated for a future Trump golf course in Hung Yen province, Vietnam, July 30, 2025. REUTERS/Khanh Vu 

[2/4]A farmer stands next to a cow at the site designated for a future Trump golf course in Hung Yen province, Vietnam, July 30, 2025. REUTERS/Francesco Guarascio

[3/4]A farmer works at the site designated for a future Trump golf course in Hung Yen province, Vietnam, July 30, 2025. REUTERS/Khanh Vu

[4/4]People attend a groundbreaking ceremony of the Trump Organization and a partner for a luxury residential development with three 18-hole golf courses in Hung Yen, a northern province of Vietnam, May 21, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer

HUNG YEN, August 11 (Reuters) – Vietnamese farmer Nguyen Thi Huong has slept poorly since authorities told her to vacate her farm for a Trump family-backed golf resort, offering just $3,200 and rice provisions in return.

The golf resort, for which construction is scheduled to begin next month, is offering thousands of villagers such compensation packages to leave the land that has provided their livelihood for years or decades, according to six people with direct knowledge and documents seen by Reuters.

The project is the first partnership for the family business of U.S. President Donald Trump in Vietnam, which fast-tracked approvals as it negotiated a crucial trade deal with Washington.

Developers are now cutting compensation forecasts from an initial estimate exceeding $500 million, said one person familiar with the plans who declined to elaborate on reasons for the reduction.

The 990-hectare site designated for the golf course currently supports fruit farms growing bananas, longan, and other crops. While some see opportunity, many farmers are elderly and fear they will struggle to find alternative livelihoods in Vietnam’s vibrant economy with its largely young demographic.

“The whole village is worried about this project because it will take our land and leave us jobless,” said 50-year-old Huong, who was told to leave her 200-square-metre (2152.78 square-feet) plot in Hung Yen province near capital Hanoi for less than the average pay for one year in Vietnam.

Vietnamese real estate company Kinhbac City (KBC.HM), opens new tab and its partners will develop the luxury golf club after paying the Trump Organization $5 million for brand licensing rights, according to regulatory filings and a source familiar with the deal.

Trump’s family business will run the club once completed, but is not involved in the investment and in compensation to farmers.

Trump has said his assets in the businesses are held in a trust managed by his children, but disclosures in June showed income from those sources ultimately accrues to the president.

Vietnam’s agriculture ministry, Hung Yen authorities, the Trump Organization and Kinhbac City did not reply to questions on compensation rates.

Authorities will determine final compensation rates based on land size and location, with formal approval expected next month. Five farmers facing dispossessions said authorities flagged reimbursements worth between $12 and $30 per square metre of farmland.

They also offered additional payments for uprooted plants and provisions of rice for some months, roughly in line with one document seen by Reuters.

The person familiar with the compensation plan said the range was accurate, declining to be named because the information was not public.

A local official declined to talk about the compensation but said rates for farmland in the area have usually not exceeded $14 per square metre. They are often higher in other provinces.

In Communist-run Vietnam, farmland is managed by the state. Farmers are assigned small plots for long-term use but have little say when authorities decide to take the land back. Protests are common but usually fruitless.

Compensation is paid by the state but developers foot the bill.

Four of the farmers contacted by Reuters were not happy with the proposed rates because their small plots would produce low payments.

Thousands of villagers will be affected, according to a second document from local authorities seen by Reuters, which stated final payment decisions were expected next month.

Huong leases a larger plot from other villagers, but can claim land compensation only for the small one assigned to her and for the plants she grows. “What can someone like me do after that?”

RICE FOR LAND

Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said farmers would be reimbursed fairly when he spoke in May at the groundbreaking ceremony for the golf project to an audience that included Trump’s son Eric, a senior vice president of the Trump Organization.

“We have no right to negotiate. That’s a shame,” said Do Dinh Huong, another farmer who was told his plot would be compensated at roughly $12 per square metre.

He said he would have accepted what he believed was a low rate if the land were to be used to build roads or other public infrastructure.

“But this is a business project. I don’t know how that would contribute to people’s life.”

Authorities have also offered rice as compensation, with provisions varying from two to twelve months, according to one of the documents seen by Reuters.

Nguyen Thi Chuc, a 54-year-old farmer who grows bananas in what will become the Trump golf club, was told by authorities she might receive roughly $30 per square metre for her 200-square-metre plot.

“I’m getting old and can’t do anything else other than working on the farm,” she said.

Conversely, lawyers and investors in the province said the golf club would create better jobs and enrich villagers.

Le Van Tu, a 65-year-old local who will be compensated for his small plot and owns an eatery in a village that the golf club will abut, said he will upgrade his diner into a restaurant to cater to wealthier clients.

Land prices in the village have risen fivefold since the project was announced in October, he said. He was also happy a nearby pig farm will be gone: “It won’t be stinky anymore.”

Reporting by Francesco Guarascio and Khanh Vu; Editing by Saad Sayeed

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Vietnam bypassing its own laws to fast-track $1.5B Trump golf resort amid tariffs threat, report says

Trump project began groundbreaking after just three months of planning process that is said to usually take years

John Bowden in Washington, D.C.,

Independent – Sunday 25 May 2025 20:12 BST

Donald Trump’s family business is breaking ground on an accelerated project in Vietnam as the country’s government seeks an updated trade agreement with the United States.

The U.S. president’s tariff threats have driven Vietnam to seek a new arrangement with America, potentially including efforts to combat trade fraud, as the White House inches closer to a July deadline when Trump’s so-called “reciprocal” tariff measures will snap back into place.

He previously ordered a 90-day pause of his order imposing sky-high tariff rates on many countries, including Vietnam, which is set to face a 46 percent tariff on all exports to the United States on top of the Trump administration’s 10 percent across-the-board import measures.

Eric Trump and his wife Lara pose for a selfie at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Trump International, Hung Yen resort and golf course project in Hung Yen province on May 21, 2025 (AFP via Getty Images)

Now, The New York Times reports that a $1.5 billion Trump Organization development project outside of Hanoi has seemingly blown through the typical approval process, leaving locals enraged at the government and the president adding another layer to the onion of alleged self-dealing and kickbacks that has defined all four years and four months of Trump’s presidential tenure.

According to documents published by the Times on the Trump Organization’s Hanoi development, the project skipped typical environmental reviews and cut short a local public comment period — one that had been dotted by fired-up local residents who’ve been informed that their land will be sold for less than half the value of what the parcels would have been worth prior to the alleged land grab.

The area set to be developed for the project includes farms and nearly four square miles of riverbank property, all together totaling “hundreds” of residences.

One local, Le Van Truong, 54, was quoted byThe New York Times as saying he could lose farmland as well as the local cemetery holding five generations of his ancestors.

“Trump says it’s separate — the presidency and his business. But he has the power to do whatever he wants,” he said.

Wednesday’s groundbreaking for the project took place just three months after the initial documents were filed, a process which experts told the Times usually takes at least two years. Some steps were reportedly skipped entirely, while others were still underway.

But even as the project reportedly endangers the livelihoods and homes of hundreds of people, experts in Vietnamese law who spoke to the newspaper said that the project was blowing through the typical process for approval and safe development at an alarming rate of speed.

In one anecdote, the paper even noted that “the province is dotted with unexploded ordnance from the Vietnam War” and saw a 200-pound bomb recovered recently.

Reports suggest the Hung Yen resort and golf course project is ‘receiving special attention from the Trump administration and President Donald Trump personally’ (AFP via Getty Images)

And the cause seems to be apparent: one letter published by the Times states, according to a translation, that the project was “receiving special attention from the Trump administration and President Donald Trump personally.”

White House officials continue to deny this. At a press conference this past week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the president placed his businesses in a blind trust upon taking office in 2017, where they remain, controlled by his family including his adult children, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

The press secretary also repeated an insistence common among Trump officials: that the president is too personally wealthy and patriotic to take advantage of such an obvious financial opportunity.

In an emailed statement to the Times regarding the Vietnam project, a White House spokesperson said: “All of the president’s trade discussions are totally unrelated to the Trump Organization.”

The White House also insisted there was no conflict of interest because the president’s sons run the business.

The groundbreaking ceremony for what is billed as a luxury residential development with two 18-hole golf courses, worth $1.5B and set to be completed by 2027 (REUTERS)

Yet the second Trump administration has brazenly defied ethical standards, in reality. Trump last week hosted purchasers of his “memecoin” — a “digital currency” which critics say seems to serve no other purpose beyond trading, either for private financial gain or, in the case of those who visited the president’s Bedminster property for a depressing-looking meal on Thursday, to funnel money to the Trump family’s pockets in exchange for direct access to the president.

Some attendees told reporters after the event that they attended with the explicit hopes of appealing to the president about specific issues.

The Trump Organization’s Vietnam development is set to feature a riverside resort with two golf courses and private villas for guests. It’s valued at around $1.5 billion and estimated to be completed in two years.

In a tweet on Saturday, the Trump Organization said: “We’re proud to break ground on Trump International Hanoi at Hung Yen — the first Trump-branded golf and residential development in Vietnam, in partnership with Hung Yen Hospitality and Kinh Bac City Development. This landmark destination will feature ultra-luxury villas, a world-class clubhouse, and two championship golf courses designed by Bryson DeChambeau. More than a destination, this is a bold statement of elegance, heritage, and global excellence — bringing the iconic Trump standard to one of the world’s most dynamic markets.”

Erasing all doubt about the project’s ties to official relations between the U.S. government and his own, Vietnam’s prime minister Pham Minh Chinh said at the groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday that the project would “receive maximum support” to “further strengthen the relationship between Vietnam and the U.S.”

The Independent has contacted the White House, the Trump Organization and the Vietnamese Embassy for comment.