Scottish protesters say they will win a wave of resistance as President Donald Trump prepares to travel to the country for a five-day private visit on Friday.
Trump travels to a golf resort in a small village in Turnbury on the west coast, where he meets Starmer of Kiel, England on Monday, to another resort near Aberdeen on the other side of Scotland, opening an 18-hole course dedicated to his Scottish-born mother Mary.
From trade unions and climate justice campaigners to the US diaspora and sections of advocacy groups in the Palestinian and Ukrainian, several protest groups plan to demonstrate to the US president under the umbrella “stop the Trump Union.” The protests are scheduled for Saturday in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dumfries.
Police Scotland will deploy thousands of officers during Trump’s visit, according to PA media.
Aide Emma Bond told CNN that the visit would require a significant police operation using local, national and expert resources across police Scotland, supported by other British police colleagues. Trump himself is expected to stay away from the public at his golf resort.
Scotland has been ruled by a centrally delegated government for decades and has a long history of protesting Trump. When he visited a golf course in Scotland during his first presidency, police estimated that 5,000 people marched through Edinburgh in protest.
On Friday, Scotland’s independent newspaper The National printed a front page with the headline “Convicted US felons to arrive at Scotland.”
“I don’t think the Scots are welcoming him,” Scotland resident Anna Ackrov told Glasgow’s Reuters. “I think it’s embarrassing that he’s here. Personally.”
But not everyone is so opposed to Trump’s visit. Another Grasswayer Keith Bean told Reuters that Trump thought “it’s coming” because “talking is always good. They tend to split people without a discussion and continue to separate each other, causing more problems than conversations.”
While in Scotland, Trump will also meet John Swinney’s first minister. John Swinney said it would raise very important global and humanitarian issues, including ensuring that Scotland can be heard at the highest levels of governments around the world, including the unimaginable suffering we are witnessing in Gaza.
This visit to Scotland is distracted from Trump’s current domestic political issues surrounding the relationship between sex traffickers who died in suicide in 2019 and dishonest investor Jeffrey Epstein.
But already, that ongoing turmoil has permeated Trump’s visit. The White House removed the Wall Street Journal from the pool of travel after describing a story describing a collection of letters given to Epstein in 2003, including a note containing Trump’s name and the outline of a naked woman. The next day, Trump filed a lawsuit claiming defamation, “Because there are no real letters or pictures.”
Trump will return to the UK in September and make a “unprecedented” second state visit at King Charles’ invitation.
Typically, the second term of the US president is not invited for his second state visit. In line with tradition, former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush were served lunch or tea with the monarch in the second administration.
Fix:
This story was updated to revise the date the nation released Trump front page.
