Donald Trump sought escape on his summer golf vacation – some Scots thought otherwise

A small group of protesters greeted the US President at his resort on Scotland’s west coast.

Anti-Trump protesters gathered outside the US Consulate in Edinburgh. Picture: Jane Barlow/AP

If President Donald Trump hoped his golfing holiday in Scotland would present a welcome respite from his political headaches at home, the Scots had other plans – or at least some did.

At Trump Turnberry Hotel & Resort, home to the President’s golf course on Scotland’s west coast, hundreds of police were deployed to ring fence the links in anticipation that thousands of people could descend on the site to protest everything from the US’s support for Israel to Trump’s policies on immigration.

But on Saturday only a handful turned up to make their case at Turnberry, their numbers diluted in part by a series of other anti-Trump events elsewhere in Scotland.

The President was scheduled to meet European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen Sunday, raising hopes that the US and Europe are moving close to a deal to avert a trans-Atlantic trade war. Trump will also meet the British leader, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, when trade again is likely to be on the agenda.

On Saturday, Trump and his son, Eric Trump, golfed with the US ambassador to the UK, Warren Stephens.

His visit prompted Scotland’s biggest security operation in years – one of the largest since Trump’s previous visit in 2018, when a protester on a paraglider breached airspace restrictions by circling over the golf course – and came as Trump finds himself going through one of the rockier patches of his presidency back home.

Police erected a fence around the golf course and deployed horseback patrols along the adjacent beach, preventing protesters from getting near the site.

“The cost of this must be ridiculous,” said Kate Hilferty, who travelled to Turnberry from Glasgow with another protester, Kenny Wilson. “To be honest I thought more people would have been here to justify it,” Wilson said.

Elsewhere, protesters in Edinburgh and Aberdeen protested Trump’s visit. “The people of Scotland don’t want to roll out a welcome mat for Donald Trump, whose government is accelerating the spread of climate breakdown and fascism around the world,” a group calling itself Stop Trump Scotland said.

To be sure, Trump has some supporters in Scotland. A group gathered at Prestwick Airport to welcome him as he arrived on Air Force One on Friday evening. Cathy MacLeod travelled to Turnberry from Johnston, a town about an hour away, in hopes of catching a glimpse of the American leader. “I just think he’s reset the agenda politically and that’s a good thing, and not just in America,” she said.

President Trump played golf Saturday at his course in Turnberry, on Scotland’s west coast. Picture: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images

Trump typically receives a rougher reception when he returns to his ancestral home. While the Irish are famously keen on playing up any links they have to whomever is sitting in the White House – Joe Biden and John F. Kennedy’s visits to Ireland were significant events – Scots seem less interested in embracing Trump, whose mother was born Mary Anne MacLeod on the Isle of Lewis. Next week he is scheduled to open a new course in her honour at his other Scottish golf investment, on the Aberdeenshire coast.

Many find his Scottish lineage embarrassing. Scots tend to skew more to the left than the rest of the UK, and a recent opinion poll found that seven out of 10 people here have an unfavourable opinion of the American president, compared with 57 per cent among the British at large.

Among the protesters who gathered outside Trump’s resort Saturday was Matt Halliday, who had driven an hour from Stranraer to make his point about what he said was Trump’s inaction on Gaza and the gradual rolling back of civil liberties in the US He also had a big laminated picture of Trump with the disgraced financier, Jeffrey Epstein, with a sign saying “Trump Go Home.” “I just think he’s morally repugnant,” Halliday said.

Trump continues to face questions about his previous relationship with the financier, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal charges of sex trafficking. Trump has said his relationship with Epstein ended before he pleaded guilty to procuring a minor for prostitution in 2008. When Epstein was arrested again in 2019, Trump said he hadn’t talked to him in 15 years.

The Wall Street Journal published an article earlier this month about a letter bearing Trump’s name that was included in a 2003 birthday album for Epstein. Trump has called the letter “non-existent” and sued the Journal’s reporters, Journal publisher Dow Jones, parent company News Corp and executives, alleging that the article defamed him.

Some of the antipathy toward Trump in Scotland stems from the development of his golf courses. Construction of the courses in Aberdeenshire caused considerable environmental damage to a slowly moving network of sand dunes along the North Sea coast that was a habitat for two species of local birds, conservation officials say.

The Scottish government’s nature agency removed the area’s designation as a site of special scientific interest in 2020, a decision Trump International Scotland described at the time as “politically motivated.”

Trump International Scotland didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Scottish planning authorities went along with the golf course plan because Trump’s business had pledged investments of up to $US1.2 billion ($1.83bn) in an area looking for ways to pivot away from its dependence on the diminishing supplies of North Sea oil.

President Trump’s visit prompted Scotland’s biggest security operation in years. Picture: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images

But not all of those investments materialised, feeding further resentment in Scotland. The luxury resort complex was never built. Now, the village of Balmedie is left with 36 holes but not much more to show for it. The tourist money is being spent farther afield, in Aberdeen or Edinburgh.

David Milne, who lives next to Trump’s golf course in Aberdeenshire, spent years locked in a legal battle against Trump International Scotland’s attempts to buy up and remove his home, which Trump considered an eyesore. At one point Milne and his wife flew a large Mexican flag from their converted coastguard station.

“We’ve already seen enough of him,” he said.

Scotland’s leader, John Swinney, will likely attempt to tread delicately when he meets with Trump early next week. Swinney endorsed Kamala Harris during last year’s US presidential election and has said he plans to raise the plight of the people of Gaza, but he also says he is focused on strengthening ties with the US

“Scotland shares a strong friendship with the United States that goes back centuries. That partnership remains steadfast through economic, cultural and ancestral links – including of course, with the president himself,” Swinney said.

Dow Jones Newswires