Former president to announce work on ‘spectacular’ resort in Aberdeen
Donald Trump has touched down in Scotland this morning to open a long-delayed second golf course at his Aberdeenshire estate.
The former US president, 76, is visiting the Trump International Golf Links at Balmedie, where he will cut a ribbon to announce work on a project he described on social media as “a new and SPECTACULAR Second Course in Aberdeen”.
Before getting into a waiting car, Trump said: “It’s great to be home, this was the home of my mother.”
“Trump Force One” landed at Aberdeen airport this morning
Trump has said many times that he inherited his love of Scotland from his late mother, Mary Anne MacLeod. She was a native Gaelic speaker and met his father after emigrating to the United States as a young woman.
Trump will travel to Turnberry, the Open Championship course he owns in Ayrshire, before flying to Doonbeg, his resort in Co Clare, Ireland, on Wednesday. He earlier said on his Truth Social site: “Very exciting despite the fact that it is ‘MAKE AMERICA GREAT’ that is on my mind.”
His wife, Melania, 53, is not travelling with him, although it is expected that his son Eric, 39, and an entourage of close friends are joining in her place.
Trump is facing a series of court actions in the United States, where he has pleaded not guilty to charges of falsifying business records to hide damaging information before the 2016 presidential election.
In a civil case last week E Jean Carroll, 79, a journalist, testified against Trump, alleging that he sexually assaulted her in a New York department store more than 25 years ago and then defamed her after she spoke out about it in 2019.
Golf could be the perfect antidote for the former president, particularly amid the “great dunes of Scotland” — his description of the course he built over a “site of special scientific interest” on the Menie estate, eight miles north of Aberdeen.
He bought the estate in 2006, promising a £750 million investment. But while the Trump Organisation calculates that it has spent £100 million in the first championship course, club house and luxury hotel, only a fraction of the original vision has been realised. Detailed plans were only published in 2018 for 500 luxury homes, 50 hotel cottages, a sports centre and retail, equestrian and commercial spaces, while the second course formally passed planning in 2020.
Trump claims a kinship with Scotland, and his family connection to the country is much more immediate that of President Biden’s connection to Ireland. Biden takes fierce pride in his “Irishness”, though he was born and raised in Pennsylvania and his parents were also born in America. Biden’s connections to Ireland come mainly on his mother’s side; his great-great-grandfather Edward Blewitt grew up in Ballina, Co Mayo.
Donald Trump playing golf at the Turnberry resort in Ayrshire in 2018
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