When officials in the home province of Vietnam¡¯s top leader went door to door recently, pressing residents to sign letters agreeing to the Trump Organization¡¯s plans for a new golf community, Le Van Truong wanted to refuse.

Planning documents promised a ¡°new benchmark in luxury, recreation and business.¡± Truong, 54, pictured something else: the uprooting of a cemetery with five generations of his ancestors and the loss of rich farmland that has sustained local families for centuries.

Yet, he signed anyway, because, as he put it, ¡°there¡¯s nothing I can do.¡±