Donald Trump is in Scotland on a four-day trip to his golf courses. Air Force One touched down at Prestwick on Friday evening and the 47th president headed for the fairways of Menie and Turnberry.
It is meant to be a “private” visit, but there is no such thing for a man who blurs the line between business and politics. The US president returns to his maternal homeland with his profile as high as it has ever been. This has consequences locally, as Trump is met by communities who have lukewarm feelings towards him: nationally, as Scottish police work to keep him safe with their biggest security operation since the death of the Queen, and internationally as the president tries to get some downtime amid a deepening hunger crisis in Gaza and questions over his past relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Although Trump is scheduled to meet the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the Scottish first minister, John Swinney, the main event is a visit to his new MacLeod course – named after his late mother – in Aberdeenshire.
Mary Anne MacLeod was born in the village of Tong on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. She spoke Scots Gaelic before emigrating to New York when she was 18. Her father ran a post office on the island. Trump’s late older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, visited Lewis dozens of times. The president has been twice, once as as a child and again in 2008.
He is known there as Donald John, a nickname that is not rooted in local pride. More than 70% of Scottish people have an unfavourable opinion of Trump. His last presidential visit, in 2018, led to major demonstrations. Janey Godley, the late comedian, won liberal hearts as a lone protester at one of his golf courses. Her placard read: “Donald Trump is a cunt.”
That time, Trump was in Britain on a working visit. More than 5,000 police officers were deployed, with the Treasury paying £5m to help cover costs. An operation of a similar scale is under way.
Young Scots view Trump more favourably than older people, who have a longer memory of his dealings in the country. The MacLeod course will form part of the Trump International Golf Links, which was opened in 2012 after a contentious planning battle.
Trump bought the Aberdeenshire site in 2006 and promised to build the world’s greatest golf course. The future US president, then a humble hotelier, said it would be a £1bn development. Some residents refused to sell their land. Trump famously accused a farmer, Michael Forbes, of living in a “pig-like atmosphere”. Forbes recently restated his position to the New York Times: “There’s no way I’m ever going to sell.”
Trump promised ‘one of the greatest modern links golf courses of all time’
Scottish ministers gave the nod to the development in the belief that the economic benefit would outweigh the environmental harm. Trump said he would create up to 6,000 jobs with a 450-room hotel, sports complex, holiday apartments, two golf courses and 500 houses.
Most of these plans haven’t come to fruition. The venture has never turned a profit, and the sand dunes have lost their special environmental status. The resort’s former project director told the BBC last year that Scotland had been “hoodwinked”.
£100m: the amount of money the Trump Organization previously said it had spent on the site, against a promised £1bn.
£37.2m: the resort’s net book value.
84: the average number of people employed. They collectively earned £2,138,804 in wages in 2023, equivalent to about £25,000 a year.
Trump International Scotland has said in the past that it invested hundreds of millions into the country’s economy and built “one of the greatest modern links golf courses of all time”. Many professionals do like it.
Trump’s love affair with the resort has had global repercussions as the origin of his hostility towards renewable energy. He fought an unsuccessful legal battle to halt a wind farm that overlooked the greens. It still smarts. “They should get rid of the windmills and bring back the oil,” Trump said last week. “Windmills are really detrimental to the beauty of Scotland.”
Trump also plans to visit Turnberry, his second golf resort, on the Ayrshire coast. He bought it in 2014 and is keen for it to host the Open championship. Whitehall officials have reportedly asked organisers whether this could happen after repeated requests from Trump.
Trump isn’t the first US president to play golf in Scotland. Dwight Eisenhower took on the Turnberry bunkers in 1959. But Starmer and Swinney may want to press him on matters other than tee times, including:
the desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza
the continuing war in Ukraine, where Russia shows little sign of tiring; and
and the damage tariffs are doing to British steel and the Scotch whisky industry.
The Wall Street Journal has had its access revoked for the trip. This follows a report that Trump once wrote a lurid birthday message for the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump denies the claim and is suing the newspaper for £10bn.
That sum is a reminder of the difference between the president’s modest ancestral history and his life now. His return to Scotland sees him trying to reconcile the two.
Photograph by Robert Perry/PA Wire
