Giant baby blimps and paragliding protestors - Donald Trump’s notable visits to Scotland

Former US president’s visits to his mother’s homeland marked by protests and lots of golf

From giant inflatables depicting the former US president wearing a nappy, to a paraglider protest raging against his views on climate change, it is fair to say that Donald Trump’s trips to Scotland over the years have been eventful.

Over the past two decades, the 78 year-old has been an irregular visitor to the country of his mother’s birth, and even long before he harboured serious political ambitions, his presence was guaranteed to draw headlines. The stenographers of Holyrood still talk of Mr Trump’s cameo before the energy and tourism committee in 2012, when he was asked to back up his claims that wind power would damage Scotland’s tourism trade. “I am the evidence,” he replied. 

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Such customary bluster and braggadocio was met with controversy and derision in equal measure, but less than three years later, there was a shift change. The ostensible purpose of his June 2015 visit to the Turnberry resort he had recently purchased was to reopen its revamped clubhouse. Like other journalists in attendance, my interest was piqued not by the cost of the shiny new Strauss crystal chandeliers, but the rumours he was about to run for the most powerful office in the world.

Ensconced in Turnberry’s 1906 restaurant, he told a huddle of reporters that he would be making an announcement that would “make a lot of people very happy”. It did not concern the soup du jour.

The so-called  Trump baby blimp featured prominently in protests against the then US president during this visit to Scotland in 2018. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)The so-called  Trump baby blimp featured prominently in protests against the then US president during this visit to Scotland in 2018. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
The so-called Trump baby blimp featured prominently in protests against the then US president during this visit to Scotland in 2018. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images) | Getty Images

Indeed, when he next returned to Scotland - on the day after the Brexit vote in June 2016 - a new reality was dawning on those who had dismissed Mr Trump’s political aspirations as P.T Barnum-style tubthumping.

By then, he was the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency, albeit one still keen to talk up his businesses at every opportunity. During a rambling press conference, I asked him if the decision by the UK electorate to leave the EU spelled bad news for his Scottish resorts. The opposite was true, he insisted. “If the pound goes down, they’re going to do more business,” he said. “More people are coming to Turnberry.” 

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That visit contained flashes of what would come. A phalanx of pipers and Turnberry’s staff greeted their new owner wearing red baseball caps emblazoned with the knowing slogan, ‘Make Turnberry Great Again’, and groups of protesters gathered to jeer Mr Trump. They included several anti-racism demonstrators brandishing Mexican flags, and the comedian Janey Godley, who wielded a now infamous placard that made her feelings about Mr Trump abundantly clear. 

The full circus arrived in July 2018, when Mr Trump and a coterie of family members and White House advisers descended on Turnberry as part of a four day-long UK excursion. The occasion, midway through his controversial single term in office, brought large-scale protests up and down the country, with thousands of people taking to the streets of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee to denounce Mr Trump, and the decision by then prime minister Theresa May to invite him in the first place. The event in the capital drew the largest crowds, and culminated with the appearance of a 6m-high ‘Trump baby’ blimp in the Meadows.

A protestor holds a placard outside Trump Turnberry. Picture: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty  A protestor holds a placard outside Trump Turnberry. Picture: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty
A protestor holds a placard outside Trump Turnberry. Picture: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty | AFP via Getty Images

Some 100 miles south west, the Scottish welcome extended to Mr Trump was no less charged. Protesters gathered on Turnberry’s sandy beach chanted “No Trump, no KKK, no racist USA,” while at the resort itself, a minor security scare saw a paragliding Greenpeace protester break through a no-fly zone an unfurl a banner with the slogan, ‘Trump Well Below Par’. Amazingly, Turnberry was hosting a wedding that neither the bride or groom would forget in a hurry; both were subjected to security checks before their big day. 

All the bedlam came at a steep cost to taxpayers, With snipers positioned on temporary watchtowers and tight perimeter patrols, the policing operation in Scotland alone cost £3.2 million, a figure that raised eyebrows given Mr Trump’s two-day stint at Turnberry was billed as a “private visit”.

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According to those who were part of his delegation, he did not overly concern himself with work, playing two rounds of golf. The day after the trip, Mr Trump was due to take part in a crucial face-to-face summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. But John Bolton, who was Mr Trump’s national security adviser at the time, and accompanied him to Turnberry, later revealed when Mr Bolton tried to brief Mr Trump on the issue of Iran sending troops and weapons to Syria, he had other things on his mind; namely, a televised football match that was taking place as part of the World Cup in Russia. 

When Donald Trump visited his Turnberry resort midway through his single term in office, there was a heavy Police Scotland presence.  Picture: Leon Neal/Getty ImagesWhen Donald Trump visited his Turnberry resort midway through his single term in office, there was a heavy Police Scotland presence.  Picture: Leon Neal/Getty Images
When Donald Trump visited his Turnberry resort midway through his single term in office, there was a heavy Police Scotland presence. Picture: Leon Neal/Getty Images | Getty Images

After the commotion of that 2018 trip, it would be almost five years before Mr Trump returned to Scotland, and in considerably more subdued circumstances. Last May, he departed his jet at Aberdeen Airport and announced that it was “great to be home”. He first went to his resort in Balmedie to take part in a ribbon cutting ceremony marking the breaking of ground on work on a new course. Then, he arrived at Turnberry where, like all his previous visits, he prioritised hitting the famous Ailsa links, flanked by Secret Service agents.

Police Scotland mobilised Operation Booknote, a considerably smaller response than that mounted during the height of his presidency, and there were only around a dozen or so people who turned out to witness his arrival in South Ayrshire. Most of them described themselves as his supporters. They included Bill Harland, a 66 year-old from Stirling, who wore a Trump mask and MAGA baseball cap, both of which received Mr Trump's approval. “I like that guy,” he said as he drove past on his golf cart.

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