Vietnam is demolishing graves and moving its dead to make way for a Trump Organization golf course.
The Financial Times reported that a gravesite in the Chau Ninh commune of the Hung Yen province has already begun to be demolished so bodies can be exhumed ahead of the construction of the $1.5 billion leisure development.
Trump’s son Eric has called the new resort “the envy of all of Asia and of the entire world,” but residents in the agricultural community in northern Vietnam are now leaving large “X” marks painted on the graves of their loved ones to show they have already removed their remains.
Hoang Do, 72, was given 70 million dong [$2,660] in exchange for removing his son and parents’ remains.
“It’s painful,” he told the FT. “I’m outraged by the compensation price.”
Hoang Anh Xa has five family members in the cemetery, the FT reports.
“The grave of my great-grandparents has been there since 1967, before the establishment of this country [after the Vietnam War], so why should I move them?”
The farmland there is fertile, and now people face losing their livelihoods.
“I won’t be able to find another job,” said Xa, 50. “We do not oppose the policy of the Party and the government. We just ask for one thing only, the land price has to be [higher].”
U.S. relations with Vietnam were normalized in the 1990s, and despite Vietnam still having a communist government, its economy is market-led and places great importance on its relations with the U.S. and the West.
Last year, Reuters reported that farmers were being offered as little as $12 for 10 square feet of land. The news agency said that one woman was being offered nothing more than the equivalent of $3,200 and rice provisions to leave her farm behind.
Speaking at the time, Huong, 50, said: “The whole village is worried about this project because it will take our land and leave us jobless.”
She was offered less than the national average wage to leave her 2152.78 square-foot plot.
Vietnam is keen to please Trump, several reports have claimed, and its export-heavy economy sells vast quantities of goods to the U.S.
Last year, Trump threatened to impose one of the highest tariffs on Vietnam at 46 percent, although that was later reduced to 20 percent.
The Daily Beast has contacted the Trump Organization for comment.
