Former US president Donald Trump was due to arrive in Scotland on Monday morning as he visits his golf courses in the country on a trip which will take in his Doonbeg hotel and golf course.
He was expected to land in Aberdeen on Monday morning, saying on Truth Social – the social media platform he owns – that he will be opening a “spectacular” second course at the controversial Menie Estate in the north-east of the country.
Following his time in Scotland, he will head to his course in Doonbeg in west Clare, where gardaí were making security preparations.
Despite the visit, Mr Trump, who is running for the White House again in 2024 and is seen by many as the presumptive Republican nominee, said his campaign is “on my mind”, stressing that a victory for him would make America “greater than ever before”.
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“Will be leaving for Scotland & Ireland soon in order to see and inspect my great properties there,” he wrote.
“The golf courses and hotels are among the greatest in the world – Turnberry and Aberdeen, in Scotland, and Doonbeg, in Ireland.
“Will be meeting with many wonderful friends, and cutting a ribbon for a new and spectacular second course in Aberdeen.
“Very exciting despite the fact that it is ‘make America great again’ that is on my mind, in fact, America will be greater than ever before.”
While Mr Trump’s politics are a “talking point”, the people of Doonbeg try to look past that when the major employer comes to town, they told The Irish Times.
“We can leave the politics out of it,” Rita McInerney who owns one of the two shops, said. “The reality is that the American people have a vested interest in who their president is and we’re looking at it from the outside, we don’t have to elect the American president. I think in Ireland there are those that support Donald Trump and there’s those that don’t and there’s those who are agnostic and say look it’s up to them.”
Aideen O’Mahoney, the principal of Clohanes national school, whose pupils met the president on his 2019 visit, highlighted his contribution to the local economy.
“He has a business that is providing employment for 200 to 300 people, many of them young,” she said. “And that is why the people here appreciate what he has done and what is doing for the area.”
The tycoon’s trip comes as he faces legal trouble in his native New York over his business practices.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges of falsifying business records to hide damaging information ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Mr Trump had previously spent two days at his Turnberry course while in office in 2018, meeting Theresa May and the Queen during the visit.
Asked last week if he will meet Mr Trump, who has made controversial statements about Muslims in the past, Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf said: “I would find it difficult, I have to say, to meet with him without raising the significance of concerns I have of the remarks that he’s made in the past.” –Additional reporting by PA
