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Scotland’s first minister John Swinney hosted Donald Trump’s son Eric on Thursday for a “very heat and pleasant” assembly in his official residence in Edinburgh, though the dialog prevented politics and targeted on golf and funding.
Swinney, who every week in the past argued {that a} second state go to to the UK for the US president needs to be conditional on Washington’s continued assist for Ukraine, “commonly meets with enterprise folks concerning funding in Scotland”, a Scottish authorities spokesperson mentioned.
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, visiting Trump on the White Home final month, handed on an official invitation for a second state go to from King Charles, together with visiting the monarch in Scotland.
The go to of Eric Trump to Bute Home comes amid rising European concern over the Trump administration’s strategy to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and a widening commerce conflict, together with tariffs on metal and aluminium imports which are more likely to have an effect on the UK.
The president owns two golf resorts in his mom’s homeland, at Turnberry in Ayrshire and at Balmedie in Aberdeenshire, the place a second 18-hole course is ready to open over the summer season. Trump is broadly anticipated to attend the opening.
Eric Trump, govt vice-president of the Trump Group conglomerate, mentioned the primary minister had thanked him for the corporate’s “ongoing colossal funding and dedication to Scotland”.
“That is the primary time that I’ve heard these phrases from the primary minister and so they had been massively appreciated,” he mentioned in a press release.
As Trump on Thursday threatened punitive measures on the EU’s alcohol exports, Swinney has been at pains to guard main Scottish exports akin to whisky and salmon. Trump hit Scotch whisky with tariffs in his first time period.
The discussions targeted on enterprise and funding, with Trump’s firm saying it was dedicated to creating the Scottish resorts “two of essentially the most iconic golf locations on the planet”.
Throughout Starmer’s go to to Washington final month, Trump’s group raised the potential for Turnberry hosting golf’s oldest international tournament, the Open Championship — a call managed by the R&A, the executive physique that runs the Open.
Final weekend, activists sprayed Turnberry’s buildings with purple paint and daubed “Gaza is just not on the market” on one of many greens, a reference to Trump’s proposal to resettle Palestinians from the war-torn enclave and switch it into “the riviera of the Center East”.
