Donald Trump has landed in Scotland for a high-profile, four-day visit aimed at promoting his luxury golf resorts, even as wars rage abroad, domestic criticism mounts, and political tensions escalate ahead of a crucial state visit in September.
The former US president, who is set to meet UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney, will tour his properties in Turnberry and Menie venues that have become symbols of his long-standing entanglement between political power and private business.
Trump’s visit, which includes the launch of a new 18-hole course at Menie in Aberdeenshire, has drawn scrutiny for its timing and intent. While the White House maintains the trip includes diplomatic engagements, critics point to the fact that few sitting presidents have so openly advanced personal business interests on international soil.
“Even by Trump’s standards, the years since he last held office have been wild,” as noted a journalist who met him on the 2015 campaign trail. “Back then, even as he boasted of frontrunner status, his priority message to the UK public was to promote his Scottish golf courses.”
This latest trip comes in the shadow of global instability. With conflicts still raging in Gaza and Ukraine, and questions surrounding Trump’s ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein resurfacing, many observers see the president’s golf-focused tour as a striking misalignment of priorities.
The visit is shrouded in unprecedented security. Military aircraft carrying helicopters and surveillance equipment have arrived at Aberdeen and Prestwick airports. Roads have been shut down, airspace restricted, and additional police reinforcements deployed across Scotland. One former senior officer estimated the policing bill could top £5 million.
Protests are expected in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, echoing the backlash Trump faced in 2018, when a paraglider breached airspace to fly over Turnberry in protest. Despite widespread disapproval of Trump in the UK, he may find support in Aberdeen, which he called “the oil capital of Europe.”
Trump stirred fresh controversy last week by saying, Aberdeen should get rid of the windmills and bring back the oil,” drawing backlash from environmental groups like Uplift, which said his claim “runs counter to reality.”
The visit also reopens old wounds in Trump’s long battle with Scotland’s green energy push. In 2012, he called a proposed wind farm off the Menie coast a “terrible error” that would “destroy Scotland.” Asked to provide proof that turbines would harm Scottish tourism, Trump famously declared: “I am the evidence.”
Despite his efforts, the wind farm was built and now looms over his course.
At Turnberry, Trump remains frustrated that the R&A, golf’s governing body, has refused to host The Open there since he purchased the resort in 2014. “It’s not controversial itself,” one source noted, “but Trump clearly sees it as a personal snub.”
As he seeks to rebrand himself on the world stage ahead of his official state visit this fall hosted by King Charles at Windsor Castle Trump’s Scotland tour reveals how closely his business ambitions remain intertwined with his political image.
He may be president again, but Donald Trump is still chasing a golf deal.
Erizia Rubyjeana
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