London — President Trump is due to arrive Friday for what the White House is calling a “working visit” to Scotland. It’s expected to include a mix of both personal time, and political business. As was the case during his last visit as president in 2018, he is likely to be greeted by protests everywhere he goes in his mother’s native land.
The plan is for Mr. Trump to pay visits to his two luxury golf resorts in Scotland, Trump International on the east coast of Aberdeenshire, which he bought in 2012, and Trump Turnberry in Ayrshire, about 200 miles away on the west coast, which he purchased in 2014.
During his visit he’s also set to meet Scotland’s top official, First Minister John Swinney, who publicly backed Kamala Harris’ presidential bid against Mr. Trump last year.
The American leader will also meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer near the end of his trip in Scotland, and the current 25% U.S. tariffs on British steel imports could be a focus of discussion.
Trump visits bring protests and security concerns
Mr. Trump has Scottish roots through his mother, who was born in 1912 as Mary Anne MacLeod on the Scottish island of Lewis in the remote Outer Hebrides.
But despite his ancestry, Mr. Trump can likely expect a luke-warm to cold reception on Scottish soil. Some Scots believe the American real estate mogul-turned-president has been good for the country, bringing in investment and with it, some employment, but others criticize the polices he has adopted during his second term.
In advance of Mr. Trump’s arrival, the Stop Trump Scotland protest group has been organizing demonstrations at Aberdeen and outside the U.S. consulate in Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh — part of a so-called “Festival of Resistance” that aims to mix city-based actions with countryside activism around Mr. Trump’s golf resorts.
The demonstrations are slated to include large banners and messages in the sand of Scotland’s coastline, intended to be visible to the president as he lands
A senior Scottish police official told Britain’s Sky News it would be “inappropriate” to ignore the assassination attempt against Mr. Trump a year ago.
“There’s a broad range of considerations,” said Police Scotland Assistant Chief Constable Emma Bond. “It would be inappropriate for me to plan an operation and not bear in mind what has happened in other parts of the world. But with that in mind, we’ve got a really experienced team of officers working as part of planning the operation.”
During Mr. Trump’s 2018 trip to Scotland, CBS News’ partner network BBC News says there were more than 5,000 police officers deployed, with the U.K. Treasury chipping in about £5 million ($6.8 million) to help cover the costs to the Scottish police force.
Trump’s visit is private, but with some politics
While he made his preference for Mr. Trump’s opponent clear before the last U.S. election, the head of Scotland’s government said it was his duty to meet with the U.S. president during his upcoming visit.
“I’ve taken a decision that’s in Scotland’s interest to meet with the president of the United States so that I can use every opportunity to protect and to promote the interests of the people of Scotland,” Swinney told Britain’s PA news agency. “There’s obviously a range of issues that we can cover around the international situation that’s causing such anxiety to people in Scotland, around the situation the Middle East, and the situation in Ukraine, and the domestic issues that are important to us around about the implications of, for example, trade and tariffs on some of our key sectors, including Scotch whisky.”
Mr. Trump is expected to meet on Monday with Prime Minister Starmer, but due to it being officially a private visit, neither the White House nor Starmer’s office have revealed much about what the two may do or discuss. For Starmer, however, keeping discussions going about U.S. tariffs imposed since Mr. Trump came back to the White House will likely be a key theme.
President Trump has imposed 25% tariffs on imported British steel. Starmer hopes to get that rate lowered, to zero if possible, to shore up the U.K.’s steel industry, which has seen its output plummet by around 80% since the 1960’s.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the two leaders would meet “to refine the historic U.S.-U.K. trade deal” brokered in May.
Mr. Trump will return to the U.K. for an unprecedented second official state visit on September 17, during which he is scheduled to meet with King Charles III. Starmer hand-delivered the invitation for that visit, on behalf of the monarch, when he visited Mr. Trump at the White House in February.
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