Why Vietnam Ignored Its Own Laws to Fast-Track a Trump Family Golf Complex

[highplainsdem]

Source: NYT

-snip-

To fast-track the Trump development, Vietnam has ignored its own laws, legal experts said, granting concessions more generous than what even the most connected locals receive. Vietnamese officials, in a letter obtained by The New York Times, explicitly stated that the project required special support from the top ranks of the Vietnamese government because it was “receiving special attention from the Trump administration and President Donald Trump personally.”

And Vietnamese officials have waved the development along in a moment of high-stakes diplomacy. They face intense pressure to strike a trade deal that would head off President Trump’s threat of steep tariffs, which would hit about 30 percent of Vietnam’s exports.

Eric Trump, the president’s second son, stands at the center of the drama. Mr. Trump was in Vietnam to break ground for the golf project on Wednesday, less than a year after meeting a local building partner, Dang Thanh Tam. Inside a tent with a gold facade, Mr. Trump told guests, including the country’s prime minister, that “the Trump family is going to make you very, very proud.”

The White House said, in an emailed statement, “All of the president’s trade discussions are totally unrelated to the Trump Organization.” It argued that there are no ethical issues as the president’s family develops about 20 Trump-branded properties worldwide, because the president’s sons run the businesses. President Trump’s financial disclosure report, however, shows that he still personally benefits financially from most of these ventures.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/world/asia/trump-vietnam-golf-project.html

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This was on the front page of the NY Times this morning (with the first headline you'll see in the Bluesky post below - "Vietnam's Rush to Rip Up Land for a Trump Golf Complex" - different from the current one, but the same story).

It should be getting attention everywhere.

NYT, page one:

The “.5 billion golf complex” and “Trump skyscraper .. are the Trump family’s first projects in Vietnam — part of a global moneymaking enterprise that no family of a sitting American president has ever attempted on this scale.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/w...

— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) 2025-05-25T11:45:01.151Z