Trump’s trip to Scotland is mostly to visit his golf courses. Where’s the backlash? | Mohamad Bazzi

16 hours ago 6

Donald Trump will be visiting Scotland for five days, but he won’t spend most of his time in high-level diplomatic meetings or conducting other state business. He’s primarily visiting two of his golf resorts, and dedicating a new golf course named in honor of his mother, who was born in Scotland.

In other words, Trump appears to be going on a junket, paid for by US taxpayers, to check out his golf properties in a foreign country.

The White House has shared few details about Trump’s upcoming “private” trip, which starts on Friday and runs through 29 July. The secrecy is deliberate – to avoid questions and criticism of a presidential visit that is mainly focused on promoting Trump’s business interests. As of Tuesday, three days before Trump’s expected arrival in Scotland, the US administration still had not shared the president’s itinerary with the Scottish police force, which is bracing for protests in several cities.

Most coverage of Trump’s trip has focused on the fact that the White House decided to ban Wall Street Journal reporters from the press pool that will travel with the president, in retaliation for the outlet’s recent report connecting Trump to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But few media outlets have asked why Trump is visiting Scotland in the first place, especially since the White House is planning another, more elaborate state visit to the UK in September, when Trump will be hosted by King Charles.

When Trump’s aides finally confirmed his Scotland trip last week, they focused on his plans to meet with Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, and John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister. Not surprisingly, the White House downplayed the fact that Trump will spend most of his time visiting his own golf courses – and holding those few official meetings at his properties. Trump is also expected to open a new golf course at his resort along Scotland’s North Sea coast, near Aberdeen, naming it in honor of his mother, Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. The Trump Organization is already advertising the new 18-hole course, which is supposed to open to the public next month, as the “greatest 36 holes in golf”, alongside an original course that opened in 2012.

It’s the latest example of Trump exploiting the presidency to promote his business interests, with little outrage or resistance from Congress, the news industry and the rest of the political establishment in Washington. With an obedient Congress led by Republicans who fear Trump’s wrath and a supreme court ruling that gave the president broad immunity for official acts, Trump is more emboldened than ever. And while previous US presidents and their families have profited from their time in power, Trump has taken presidential graft to another level.

The scope of Trump’s profiteering in the first six months of his second term has been astounding: foreign real estate deals worth billions of dollars, negotiated by his sons and mostly based in the Middle East and Europe; a $2bn cryptocurrency project with an investment fund backed by the government of Abu Dhabi, which could eventually generate hundreds of millions of dollars in profit for the president and his family; and a new private club in Washington (called “Executive Branch” and co-founded by Donald Trump Jr) that plans to charge a $500,000 membership fee. Thanks to its crypto investments and real estate deals, the Trump family increased its wealth by nearly $3bn after Trump took office in January.

He also uses the vast resources of the presidency to regularly visit his properties, especially his golf resorts – and to publicly advertise his properties and other business interests at press conferences. The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington estimated that, in his first six months back in office, Trump made 62 visits to his golf courses, a 37% increase from his first term. (These visits include Trump appearances at private events and fundraisers, so he did not necessarily play golf at every outing.) A website called the Donald Trump Golf Tracker, which uses data from the president’s public schedule, says Trump has golfed about 23% of the days he has been in office (43 out of 186, as of Thursday).

The problem isn’t that Trump enjoys golf – it’s that he insists on spending significant time at his own residences and golf courses, at taxpayer expense. And those trips often benefit Trump directly, since his properties have charged the US government to house Secret Service personnel and White House staff, sometimes at “exorbitant” rates. Trump is particularly fond of his Florida mansion and private club at Mar-a-Lago, which he calls his “winter White House”. Since his inauguration, Trump has visited Mar-a-Lago 10 times, the last in early May, when he started making regular weekend trips to his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey – presumably to avoid the Florida heat.

Each of Trump’s weekend jaunts to Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster costs taxpayers millions of dollars. And they stand as a constant reminder of the president’s hypocrisy, as Trump fires thousands of federal workers and slashes government funding in the name of preventing alleged fraud – while he continues to spend taxpayer funds on his golf outings.

In 2019, a report by the Government Accountability Office analyzed four trips that Trump took in 2017 to Mar-a-Lago, and estimated the price tag was $13.6m, or about $3.4m for each visit. That estimate included the cost of flying Air Force One, along with a separate cargo plane that carries the presidential motorcade, between Washington and the Palm Beach international airport. But the GAO report did not include the cost of lodging, dining and other expenses incurred by White House staff during these visits, so the total bill is probably higher. With 10 trips to his Palm Beach resort so far into his second term, taxpayers have already spent at least $34m on Trump’s golf outings – not counting his visits to Trump-owned golf clubs in New Jersey and Virginia.

How much will US taxpayers spend on Trump’s trip to Scotland, where he plans to visit his golf resorts at Turnberry and at Menie, north of Aberdeen? It’s difficult to come up with an accurate figure because audits of previous presidential travel usually include a partial accounting of costs incurred by multiple US agencies. But a visit by Trump to Scotland in July 2018, during his first term, to his Turnberry resort provides some clues. Trump made a weekend stopover to play golf on his way to a summit meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. An inspector general’s report, which was requested by Democrats in Congress, found that the Secret Service and the state department together spent more than $1.1m on the trip – a figure that doesn’t include the cost of flying Air Force One and its associated cargo plane.

Trump’s weekend jaunt in 2018 to one of his golf resorts generated outrage from Democrats in Congress, and a subsequent investigation. Now Trump is embarking on an even longer, and largely personal, trip to Scotland – one where he plans to visit all of his properties. And hardly anyone is raising a fuss because the president has normalized corruption and fully neutered his opposition.