Trump takes a break from world affairs to tee-up his Scottish golf programs

Donald Trump flies into Scotland later to go to two golf resorts which he owns within the nation the place his mom was born.

He’ll journey to Turnberry in South Ayrshire, a world class venue he purchased in 2014, and to Menie in Aberdeenshire to open a brand new 18-hole course.

The White Home says Trump may also meet prime minister Sir Keir Starmer to debate commerce whereas he’s within the UK.

The journey is outstanding as US presidents not often promote their private pursuits so publicly whereas in workplace.

It’s not the primary time that Trump has been accused of conflating his personal affairs with the nation’s.

Even so, with Gaza and Ukraine in flames, the greenback on the slide, and questions mounting about his ties to convicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, Trump’s resolution to give attention to golf has raised eyebrows.

I witnessed Trump’s unconventional angle first hand, proper at the beginning of his political profession, after I met him on the marketing campaign path in 2015 because the Republicans looked for a candidate who may win again the presidency after Barack Obama’s two phrases in workplace.

Trump strode off the controversy stage in a glitzy Las Vegas resort and right into a room full of cameras.

Jostling for place, I requested the person with the lengthy pink tie a few questions and, after boasting about his standing as frontrunner within the race, he advised me he had a message for the UK.

This may make information, I believed. Possibly one thing about immigration, Trump’s signature marketing campaign subject?

It was not. As a substitute Trump needed BBC viewers to know that he had some superb golf programs on Scotland’s shores which they need to go to.

The reply struck me as outstanding for a person aspiring to turn out to be the so-called chief of the free world.

In fact Trump does have a real hyperlink to Scotland.

His Gaelic-speaking mom, Mary Anne MacLeod, was born in 1912 on the island of Lewis in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides and left through the Nice Despair for New York the place she married property developer Fred Trump.

Their son’s return to Scotland for 4 days this summer season comes forward of an official state go to in September when the president and First Woman Melania Trump shall be hosted by King Charles at Windsor Fort in Berkshire.

Trump isn’t scheduled to see the King on this go to however it isn’t completely non-public both, as he’ll meet Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney in addition to the prime minister.

Enterprise leaders, together with Scotch whisky producers, are urging Starmer and Swinney to make use of their conferences with Trump to foyer for a discount in US taxes on imports, generally known as tariffs.

An enormous safety operation, which has been underneath manner for weeks, has been scaled up in latest days.

Big transport plane carrying navy {hardware}, together with the president’s helicopters, identified when he’s on board by the decision signal Marine One, have been noticed at Aberdeen and Prestwick airports.

Roads and lanes in Aberdeenshire and Ayrshire have been secured and closed.

Airspace restrictions have been issued.

Police reinforcements have been heading north throughout the England-Scotland border.

Visits to Scotland by sitting US presidents are uncommon.

Queen Elizabeth hosted Dwight D Eisenhower at Balmoral in Aberdeenshire in 1957; George W Bush travelled to Gleneagles in Perthshire for a G8 summit in 2005; and Joe Biden attended a local weather convention in Glasgow in 2021.

The solely different serving president to go to this century is Trump himself in 2018 when he was met by protesters together with one flying a paraglider low over Turnberry, breaching the air exclusion zone across the resort.

Even by the requirements of Donald Trump the years since have been wild.

When he misplaced the 2020 election to Joe Biden, a mob of Trump supporters responded to their chief’s false claims of electoral fraud by mounting a violent assault on the US Capitol.

4 years later Trump staged a surprising political comeback and since returning to the White Home he has survived not less than one assassination try whereas a person has been charged with one other.

Amid this turmoil, safety surrounding Trump is supposedly tighter than ever.

The US Secret Service, a lot criticised for failures which practically price the president his life, stays primarily liable for his security however issues have been raised in regards to the affect of his go to on Police Scotland’s officers and finances, with one former senior officer estimating the policing price at greater than £5m.

Including to the stress which the police are underneath to safe his resorts, massive anti-Trump demonstrations are anticipated to be held in Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

Police Scotland insists it has the assets it wants to cope with the go to.

Whereas polls recommend Trump is deeply unpopular within the UK, he may very well discover some sympathy in Aberdeen, a metropolis which he and lots of others name “the oil capital of Europe”.

He has stirred the heated debate in regards to the nature and tempo of the transition from fossil fuels to renewable power, telling BBC Information final week that Aberdeen, which has prospered for many years from North Sea drilling, “ought to do away with the windmills and produce again the oil.”

The environmental marketing campaign group Uplift says Trump’s declare that the North Sea can nonetheless present the UK with a safe power provide “runs counter to actuality.”

Trump’s pro-oil message echoes the rhetoric of Reform UK, the right-wing social gathering led by Trump fan Nigel Farage which made progress in a latest Scottish by-election and hopes to go one step additional by profitable seats for the primary time in subsequent yr’s Scottish parliamentary election.

The Scottish Parliament, generally known as Holyrood after its location on the foot of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, runs a lot of Scotland’s home affairs, reminiscent of well being, training and a few taxation and advantages, whereas the UK parliament in London retains management of defence, international affairs and wider financial coverage.

Trump’s assist for the oil trade is well-known however his hatred of wind generators seems to run even deeper.

In 2012 he advised me that constructing a wind farm off the coast of his golf course at Menie could be a “horrible error” that will “destroy Scotland.”

The encounter was a wierd expertise.

At first, Trump’s aides advised us he was so affronted by the tough questions he had been requested by Rona Dougall of STV Information earlier that morning that he had modified his thoughts about talking to the BBC.

We waited anyway within the rain, for hours. Finally the person himself emerged. After some verbal sparring he provided us burgers from a barbecue earlier than backing down and agreeing to be interviewed.

Later, requested by a committee of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh to supply proof to again up his declare that Scottish tourism could be ruined by wind generators, Trump famously replied: “I’m the proof.”

The wind farm was constructed anyway and is now clearly seen from the course.

It’s not the one battle Trump has fought in opposition to a backdrop of shifting sand dunes and whispering grasses at Menie the place he has repeatedly clashed with native residents, politicians and environmentalists for quite a lot of causes.

His different course at Turnberry isn’t controversial itself however it’s the stage for a tussle with {the golfing} authorities as a result of Trump seems to be infuriated by the refusal of the sport’s governing physique, the R&A, to stage the distinguished Open Championship there, citing logistical challenges.

Turnberry is residence to 3 golf programs, mentioned to be the costliest to play within the UK, and the Open has been held there 4 occasions however by no means since Trump bought it in 2014.

It’s one other placing instance of how, a decade after mounting what was primarily a hostile takeover of the US Republican Occasion, the person who has been each the forty fifth and forty seventh president of the US has nonetheless not completely swapped enterprise for politics.

He’s probably the most highly effective man within the Western world and but Donald Trump remains to be irked at being snubbed, nonetheless hankering for standing, nonetheless offended a couple of {golfing} deal he has, thus far not less than, failed to shut.