There are very few places that haven’t succumbed to the capitalist rat race of economic development. While we tear through half the planet, pollute oceans and bulldoze over history in the name of urban development, some cultural practices and sites are almost always protected from such mindless development and the subsequent destruction. One such site is a cemetery that occupies a particular moral category that makes disturbing it exceptionally undesirable. Exhuming graves or disturbing cemeteries usually carry not only severe logistical complications and health concerns but also usually carries with it deep rooted cultural taboos. Whether driven by religious or traditional beliefs or simply the understanding that at least the dead should be left undisturbed through perpetuity and enjoy a permanence that the living are rarely afforded. However, when cultural values are pitted against capitalist development, the reality becomes unfortunately uncomfortable.
That is the question that many are grappling with in Vietnam’s Hung Yen province.
The Trump International Hung Yen project, which was promoted as an international project meant to be the envy of all of Asia, has a starkly different reality on the ground. While the luxury project serves as the cornerstone of Vietnam’s socioeconomic development and presents the country as a lucrative opportunity for international investors, its impact on the local population is not entirely positive. The $ 1.5 billion Trump-branded golf resort is a mega project spanning more than 888 hectares of land. However, for this project to break ground, more than 4,000 households are expected to relocate, and thousands of ancestral graves, some predating 1967, will have to be exhumed.
While the farmers were initially supportive of urban development, they didn’t quite realise that the greatest loss for them wouldn’t be their homes but their culture and generations of ancestry tied to their families, in the name of development. One resident told the Financial Times, “My great-grandparents’ graves have been there since 1967, before this country was established. So why should I move them?” This sentiment highlights a disconnect between what is considered erasure and what is considered development. For example, in Chau Ninh Commune, people had to dismantle a centuries-old cemetery sitting amidst fruit orchards, yet the emotional cost of such relocations is not considered in the name of urban development.
Vietnam is a country shaped by traditions of ancestral worship, where graves serve as more than just sites. The burial sites are deeply spiritual places for the Vietnamese people, and they serve as their physical anchors that connect families to their history and filial obligations. In a culture where people organise their lives around active expressions of kinship, the offerings and rituals practised by the community are more than mere symbolic performances. They are sacred practices that preserve the memories of their ancestors. These rituals are guided by the fundamental belief that the dead must be left undisturbed.
Therefore, exhuming graves carries profound emotional pain for people who cannot be compensated with money alone. Removing an ancestral grave, therefore, is not as simple as relocating a building or purchasing another plot of farmland. It fundamentally alters a family’s relationship with its own history. Furthermore, that compensation itself is reportedly much below market value. Some residents informed reporters that they were offered compensation as low as 12 dollars per square meter of land. Farmers are distressed by their limited compensation and anticipated losses to their livelihoods, since residents only have land-use rights, thereby severely limiting their bargaining power over compensation.
While it’s true that such a deal would help smooth over diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the Trump administration, which threatened 46% tariffs on Vietnamese exports last year, this diplomacy and development come at the huge cost of family history, cultural memories, and values. While officials maintain that the project adheres to Vietnam’s legal framework for land acquisition and will contribute to regional economic development, local news outlets have been demanding greater transparency in the fast-paced land-clearing process. Furthermore, this is despite the narrative that the ground reality has left the Hung Yen people kneeling beside open graves and carefully collecting their ancestors who had lain undisturbed in their resting places for decades.
Hung Yen raises the question of who actually bears the cost of diplomacy.
It’s certainly not the investors or the government who would benefit from the development of a luxury real estate and the international tourism it would drive. Yet economic development cannot be pursued blindly or by ignoring local history and community emotions. Unlike hospitals, schools or public transport systems, golf resorts do not claim to serve an obvious public necessity. They cater to a relatively small and affluent clientele while relying upon enormous amounts of land, water and public infrastructure. Their economic value, therefore, depends almost entirely on the assumption that attracting wealthy visitors justifies transforming existing communities into leisure landscapes. While there can be an argument about the value of such projects in a competitive global market, it’s important to have more transparent community discussions as we move forward with them and to implement better compensation policies. Someone’s progress and luxury must not come at the cost of others’ history and livelihoods.
References:
- Financial Times. (2026, May). Vietnam moves its dead for Trump golf course. (Primary reporting on Hung Yen, ancestral graves, residents, and land acquisition.)
- Reuters. (2025, May 21). Trump Organisation breaks ground on $1.5 billion golf club in Vietnam amid trade talks. (Project details, government statements, trade negotiations, Eric Trump comments.)
- Reuters. (2025, August 11). Fistful of dollars and rice for Vietnam farmers displaced for a $1.5 billion Trump golf club. (Compensation figures, displacement, farmer interviews, land-use rights.)
- Reuters. (2024, October 8). Trump Organisation to develop $1.5 billion golf course and hotel project in Vietnam. (Original investment announcement.)
- Rascius, B. (2026, May 29). Vietnam moves its dead to make way for Trump golf course, report says. The Independent.
- TBS Report. (2026, May 30). Vietnam relocates ancestral graves for Trump-linked golf course amid local backlash. The Business Standard.