Donald Trump to visit Scotland next week, White House confirms

US President Donald Trump will visit Scotland next week, the White House has confirmed.   

He will be in Scotland from 25 to 29 July and is expected to visit both his Turnberry and Aberdeenshire golf courses, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.  

During his trip, Trump will meet both Prime Minister Keir Starmer and First Minister John Swinney.  

The US president confirmed he would meet the prime minister in Aberdeen, which he described as “the oil capital of Europe” earlier this week.  

“During the visit, President Trump will meet again with Prime Minister Starmer to refine the great trade deal that was brokered between the United States and the United Kingdom”, Leavitt said. 

Earlier this month, Police Scotland unveiled a plan was underway to support a potential visit by the US president, which it said would require "a significant policing operation.”

It has now requested extra officers from across the UK to help with the upcoming visit, according to Sky News.

Trump's private trip comes ahead of his second state visit to the UK in September.  

Earlier this year, Swinney argued the president’s second state visit was “unthinkable”, following his controversial meeting with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but he has since backtracked on his statement, saying it’s in “Scotland's interest” for him to meet Trump.  

Swinney said: “I've taken a decision that's in Scotland's interest to meet with the president of the United States so that I can use every opportunity to protect and to promote the interests of the people of Scotland.  

“There's obviously a range of issues that we can cover around the international situation that's causing such anxiety to people in Scotland, around the situation in the Middle East, and the situation in Ukraine, and the domestic issues that are important to us around about the implications of, for example, trade and tariffs on some of our key sectors, including Scotch whisky.”