new golf course

BALMEDIE, Scotland — Golf and Scotland are close to President Trump’s heart, and both were in play Tuesday as he opened a new eponymous course in the land of his mother’s birth, capping a five-day trip that was largely about promoting his family’s luxury properties.

Dressed for golf and sporting a white cap that said “USA,” Trump appeared to be in such a jolly mood that he even lavished rare praise — instead of the usual insults — on the contingent of journalists who had gathered to cover the event.

“Today they’re not fake news,” Trump said. “Today they’re wonderful news.”

The golf-focused trip gave him a chance to escape Washington’s summer heat, but he could not avoid questions about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the deepening food crisis in Gaza or other issues that trailed him across the Atlantic. The trip itself teed up another example of how the Republican president has used the White House to promote his brand.

Trump addresses Gaza and Epstein

Trump on Monday expressed concern over the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza and urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do more to get food aid to hungry Palestinians.

Asked if he agreed with Netanyahu’s assertion Sunday that “there is no policy of starvation in Gaza and there is no starvation in Gaza,” Trump said he didn’t know but added, “I mean, based on television, I would say not particularly because those children look very hungry.”

The president also offered a reason why he banished Epstein from his private club in Palm Beach, Fla., years ago, saying it was because the disgraced financier “stole people that worked for me.” A top White House aide said last week that Epstein was kicked out for being a “creep.”

Trump tees off on newly opened golf course

Flanked by sons Eric and Donald Jr., Trump counted “1-2-3” and wielded a pair of golden scissors to cut a red ribbon marking the ceremonial opening of the new Trump course in the village of Balmedie on Scotland’s northern coast.

“This has been an unbelievable development,” Trump said before the ribbon cutting. He thanked Eric, who designed the course, saying his work on the project was “truly a labor of love for him.”

Eric Trump said the course was his father’s “passion project.”

Immediately afterward, Trump, Eric Trump and two professional golfers teed off on the first hole with plans to play a full 18 before the president returns to Washington on Tuesday night. Trump rarely allows the news media to watch his golf game, though video journalists and photographers often find him along the course whenever he plays.

Trump’s shot had a solid sound and soared straight, high and relatively far. Clearly pleased, he turned to the cameras and did an almost half-bow.

“He likes the course, ladies and gentlemen,” Eric Trump said.

Billed as the “Greatest 36 Holes in Golf,” the Trump International Golf Links, Scotland, is hosting back-to-back weekend tournaments before it begins offering rounds to the public on Aug. 13.

Trump fits White House business into golf trip

Trump worked some official business into the trip by holding talks with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and reaching a trade framework for tariffs between the U.S. and the European Union’s 27 member countries — though scores of key details remain to be settled.

But the trip itself was centered around golf, and the presidential visit served to raise the new course’s profile.

Trump’s assets are in a trust and his sons are running the family business while he’s in the White House. Any business generated at the course will ultimately enrich the president when he leaves office, though.

The new golf course will be the third owned by the Trump Organization in Scotland. Trump bought Turnberry in 2014 and owns another course near Aberdeen that opened in 2012.

Trump golfed at Turnberry on Saturday, as protesters took to the streets, and on Sunday before meeting there in the afternoon with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

New course blends things dear to Trump

The occasion blended two things dear to Trump: golf and Scotland.

His mother, the late Mary Anne MacLeod, was born on the Isle of Lewis on the north coast.

“We love Scotland here. My mother was born here, and she loved it,” Trump said Tuesday. She visited “religiously once a year” during the summer with his sisters, he said.

Perhaps the only mood-buster for Trump are the wind turbines that are part of a nearby wind farm and can be seen from around the new course.

Trump, who often speaks about his hatred of windmills, sued in 2013 to block construction of the wind farm but lost the case and was eventually ordered to pay legal costs for filing the lawsuit — a matter that still enrages him more than a decade later.

Trump said on a new episode of the New York Post’s “Pod Force One” podcast that the “ugly windmills” are a “shame” and are “really hurting” Scotland. The interview was conducted over the weekend and released Tuesday.

“It kills the birds, ruins the look. They’re noisy,” he said, asserting that the value of real estate around them also plummets. “I think it’s a very bad thing. Environmentally, it’s horrible.”

Weissert and Superville write for the Associated Press. Superville reported from Washington.

EDINBURGH, Scotland — Lashed by cold winds and overlooking choppy, steel-gray North Sea waters, the breathtaking sand dunes of Scotland’s northeastern coast rank among President Trump’s favorite spots on Earth.

“At some point, maybe in my very old age, I’ll go there and do the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen,” Trump said in 2023, during his New York civil fraud trial, talking about his plans for future developments on his property in Balmedie, Aberdeenshire.

At 79 and back in the White House, Trump is making at least part of that pledge a reality, landing in Scotland on Friday as his family’s business prepares for the Aug. 13 opening of a golf course bearing his name.

Trump will be in Scotland until Tuesday, and he plans to talk trade with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The Aberdeen area is already home to another of his courses, Trump International Scotland, and the Republican president is also visiting a Trump course near Turnberry, about 200 miles away on Scotland’s southwest coast. Trump said upon arrival Friday evening that his son is “gonna cut a ribbon” for the new course during his trip. Eric Trump also went with his father to break ground on the project back in 2023.

Using a presidential overseas trip — with its sprawling entourage of advisors, White House and support staffers, Secret Service agents and reporters — to help show off Trump-brand golf destinations demonstrates how the president has become increasingly comfortable intermingling his governing pursuits with promoting his family’s business interests.

The White House has brushed off questions about potential conflicts of interest, arguing that Trump’s business success before he entered politics was a key to his appeal to voters.

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers called the Scotland swing a “working trip.” She added that Trump “has built the best and most beautiful world-class golf courses anywhere in the world, which is why they continue to be used for prestigious tournaments and by the most elite players in the sport.”

Tee times for sale

Trump went to Scotland to play his Turnberry course during his first term in 2018 while en route to a meeting in Finland with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But this trip comes as the new golf course is already actively selling tee times.

“We’re at a point where the Trump administration is so intertwined with the Trump business that he doesn’t seem to see much of a difference,” said Jordan Libowitz, vice president for the ethics watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, known as CREW. “It’s as if the White House were almost an arm of the Trump Organization.”

During his first term, the Trump Organization signed an ethics pact barring deals with foreign companies. An ethics framework for Trump’s second term allows them.

Trump’s assets are in a trust run by his children, who are handling day-to-day operations of the Trump Organization while he’s in the White House. The company has inked many recent lucrative foreign agreements involving golf courses, including plans to build luxury developments in Qatar and Vietnam, even as the Trump administration negotiates tariff rates for those countries and others.

Past legal fights

Trump’s existing Aberdeenshire course has a history nearly as rocky as the area’s cliffs.

It has struggled to turn a profit and was found by Scottish conservation authorities to have partially destroyed nearby sand dunes. Trump’s company also was ordered to cover the Scottish government’s legal costs after the course unsuccessfully sued over the construction of a nearby wind farm, arguing in part that it hurt golfers’ views.

The development was part of the massive civil case, which accused Trump of inflating his wealth to secure loans and make business deals.

Trump’s company’s initial plans for his first Aberdeen-area course called for a luxury hotel and nearby housing. His company received permission to build 500 houses, but Trump suggested he’d be allowed to build five times as many and borrowed against their values without actually building any homes, the lawsuit alleged.

Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump liable last year and ordered his company to pay $355 million in fines — a judgment that has grown with interest to more than $510 million as Trump appeals.

Weissert writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.