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Donald Trump has embarked on a five-day golf-focused visit to Scotland, during which the US president said he hoped he might be able to “improve” the trade deal struck with the UK in May.
Trump, who landed in Scotland on Friday evening, will visit his golf resorts at Aberdeen and at Turnberry in Ayrshire, where he will discuss with Sir Keir Starmer on Monday the prospect of lowering US tariffs on steel and a longer-term British bid to cut tariffs on Scotch whisky.
Before embarking on Air Force One, the president said of his meeting with the UK prime minister: “We are going to be talking about the trade deal we made, and maybe even improve it.”
British and US negotiators have been trying for weeks to hammer out a plan to cut tariffs on UK steel exports to America, although both sides have played down the prospect of a breakthrough while Trump is in Scotland.
The president’s earlier comments raised a glimmer of hope in London that the steel dispute could be settled, in spite of a recognition that US trade teams have bigger priorities.
But after he arrived in Scotland, Trump cautioned that “nothing” was missing from the US-UK trade deal. “It is a great deal for both, and we [Trump and Starmer] are going to have a meeting on other things, other than the deal. The deal has concluded,” he said.
The US president added. “We are going to do some great things. I like your prime minister. He is slightly more liberal than I am. But he is a good man.”
Starmer wants to focus the president’s attention on wrapping up details of the US-UK trade deal, including scrapping tariffs on a quota of UK steel imports. Tariffs are set at 25 per cent now, below the 50 per cent US tariff applied to steel from other countries.
The US is concerned that some British steel exports, notably from Tata Steel’s plant at Port Talbot in south Wales, involve products that are not “melted and poured” in the UK but are originally sourced from plants outside Britain.
Trump will also hold talks with Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president on Sunday, as the US and the EU attempt to avert a transatlantic trade war.
Trump praised von der Leyen, whom he called a “highly respected woman.” But he also had a stark warning for UK and EU leaders after he landed in Scotland, saying they were “ruining” their countries by investing in wind turbines and allowing high rates of immigration.
“On immigration, you better get your act together, or you’re not going to have Europe anymore,” he said, adding: “Stop the windmills.”
A major police operation will be in force across Scotland during the US president’s visit, which will include promotion for his two golf resorts. He said he was confident the British Open would soon be staged at Turnberry.
“Turnberry is rated the number one course in the world,” he said. “I think they will do that. I am going to see it for the first time in years. It is the best resort in the world.”
His visit will also take in a trip to Aberdeen, a city he called the “oil capital of Europe”, and a meeting with John Swinney, first minister of Scotland.
“I have a lot of love, my mother was born in Scotland,” Trump told reporters. “The Scottish leader is a good man, so I look forward to meeting him.”
Ahead of Trump’s arrival, Swinney said: “As first minister it is my responsibility to advance our interests, raise global and humanitarian issues of significant importance, including the unimaginable suffering we are witnessing in Gaza, and ensure Scotland’s voice is heard at the highest levels of government across the world.”
As anti-Trump protesters prepared to gather across the country on Saturday, the Forth Road Bridge was closed on Friday after 10 Greenpeace activists abseiled off its sides, attempting to block a tanker delivering US gas to a petrochemicals facility in Grangemouth which is part-owned by Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos.
The climbers unfurled six giant “Plastics Treaty Now” banners to protest against Ineos, which the advocacy group accused of opposing a UN-backed global treaty to curb plastics production.
Ineos described the stunt as “counter-productive”, saying only effective recycling would address pollution, rather than a cap on production.