Donald Trump Expected to Visit Scotland Amid Tension With UK Leaders
— -- Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is expected to attend the grand opening of his newest resort in Scotland later this month, on the same day the results of the U.K.’s European Union referendum are likely to be announced.
Trump plans to visit the Trump Turnberry June 24, campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks told ABC News today.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published today, Trump said he was in favor of Britain’s leaving the European Union (also known as “Brexit”). That puts him at odds with President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron.
And that’s not the only point of contention between the presumptive Republican nominee and the region’s leaders.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon stripped Trump of his status as a business ambassador after Trump proposed a temporary ban on Muslims’ entering the United States, which he has since called a “suggestion.”
Cameron has also called the idea “divisive, unhelping and quite simply wrong.”
And Trump got into a spat with London’s newly installed Muslim Mayor Sadiq Khan when Khan was elected in early May. Trump would also be visiting after a petition garnered over 500,000 signatures advocating that he be banned from traveling to the U.K. Parliament debated the issue earlier this year.
There had been rumors that Trump might make a stop to meet Cameron during this trip. But officials at Downing Street have said no such plans exist at this time. And sources within the Trump campaign stress this trip abroad should not be seen as some kind of foreign diplomacy mission but, as of now, just a celebration of Turnberry.
“Very exciting that one of the great resorts of the world, Turnberry, will be opening today after a massive £200 million investment," Trump said in a statement. "I own it and I am very proud of it. I look forward to attending the official opening of this great development on June 24th.”
The course, which the presumptive Republican nominee first acquired in 2014, was shut down last fall for the huge renovation that included not just the golf course but a full revamping of the hotel on the grounds.
The first golf course opened in 1901, with the hotel following in 1906, creating the world's first golf resort, according to the Trump Organization.
