US President Donald Trump once suggested his golf course in Scotland “furthers” the US-UK relationship.
Now he’s getting the chance to prove it.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrived on Monday for a meeting with Trump at a golf course owned by the president’s family near Turnberry in south-western Scotland. Starmer and his wife, Victoria, lingered on the steps chatting at length with the president, who pointed proudly to parts of the property.
Later, the leaders will be at Aberdeen, on the country’s north-east coast, where there’s another Trump golf course and a third is opening soon.
During his first term in 2019, Trump posted of his Turnberry property, “Very proud of perhaps the greatest golf course anywhere in the world. Also, furthers UK relationship!”
Starmer is not a golfer, but toggling between Trump’s Scottish courses shows the outsized influence the president puts on properties bearing his name — and on golf’s ability to shape geopolitics.
However, even as Trump may want to focus on showing off his golf properties, Starmer will try to centre the conversation on more urgent global matters. He plans to urge Trump to press Israel to allow more aid into Gaza and attempt to end what Downing Street called “the unspeakable suffering and starvation” in the territory, while pushing for a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas.
Britain, along with France and Germany, has criticised Israel for “withholding essential humanitarian assistance” as hunger spread in Gaza. Over the weekend, Starmer said Britain will take part in efforts led by Jordan to airdrop aid after Israel temporarily eased restrictions.
But British Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds acknowledged on Monday that only the US has “the leverage” to make a real difference in the conflict.
Entering Monday’s meeting, Trump said “there are a lot of starving people” in Gaza and said he and Starmer would be talking about it. Pressed on if mass starvation was occurring there, the Republican US president said, “I don’t know,” but he suggested what he’d seen on television indicated it might be.
“Those children look very hungry,” Trump said.
That was more empathy than Trump showed about the crisis in Gaza on Sunday night, when he was focused more on how he’s not personally gotten credit for previous attempts to provide food aid.
“It’s terrible. You really at least want to have somebody say, ‘Thank you’,” Trump said.
The president added, “It makes you feel a little bad when you do that” without what he considered proper acknowledgement.
Starmer is under pressure from his Labour Party lawmakers to follow France in recognising a Palestinian state, a move both Israel and the US have condemned. The British leader says the UK supports statehood for the Palestinians but that it must be “part of a wider plan” for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Also on Monday’s agenda, according to Starmer’s office, are efforts to promote a possible peace deal to end fighting in Russia’s war with Ukraine — particularly efforts at forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table in the next 50 days.
Trump in the past sharply criticised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for also failing to express enough public gratitude toward US support for his country, taking a similar tack he’s now adopting when it comes to aid for Gaza. The president, though, has shifted away from that tone and more sharply criticized Putin and Russia in recent weeks.
On Tuesday, Trump will be at the site of his new course near Aberdeen for an official ribbon-cutting. It opens to the public on August 13 and tee times are already for sale — with the course betting that a presidential visit can help boost sales.
Protesters have planned a demonstration in Balmedie, near Trump’s existing Aberdeen golf course, after demonstrators took to the streets across Scotland on Saturday to decry the president’s visit while he was golfing.
Starmer and Trump are likely to find more common ground on trade issues.
While China initially responded to Trump’s tariff threats by retaliating with high import taxes of its own on US goods, it has since begun negotiating to ease trade tensions. Starmer and his country have taken a far softer approach. He’s gone out of his way to work with Trump, flattering the president repeatedly during a February visit to the White House, and teaming up to announce a joint trade framework on tariffs for some key products in May.
Starmer and Trump then signed a trade agreement during the G7 summit in Canada that freed the UK’s aerospace sector from US tariffs and used quotas to reduce them on auto-related industries from 25 per cent to 10 per cent while increasing the amount of US beef it pledged to import.
Discussions with Starmer follow a Trump meeting Sunday with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen at his Turnberry course. They announced a trade framework that will put 15 per cent tariffs on most goods from both countries, though many major details remain pending.
The president has for months railed against yawning US trade deficits around the globe and sees tariffs as a way to try and close them in a hurry. But the US ran an $US11.4 billion ($17.44 billion) trade surplus with Britain last year, meaning it exported more to the UK than it imported. Census Bureau figures this year indicate that the surplus could grow.
There are still lingering US-Britain trade issues that need fine-tuning. The deal framework from May said British steel would enter the US duty-free, but it continues to face a 25 per cent levy.
UK Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said Monday that “negotiations have been going on on a daily basis” and “there’s a few issues to push a little bit further today”, though he downplayed expectations of a resolution.
Upon going into the meeting, Trump said “we’re in great shape” and called the US-UK relationship “unparallelled”.
The leader of Scotland, meanwhile, said he will urge Trump to lift the current 10 per cent tariff on Scotch whisky. First Minister John Swinney said the spirit’s “uniqueness” justified an exemption.
Even as some trade details linger and both leaders grapple with increasingly difficult choices in Gaza and Ukraine, however, Starmer’s staying on Trump’s good side appears to be working — at least so far.
“The UK is very well-protected. You know why? Because I like them — that’s their ultimate protection,” Trump said during the G7.
