Trump Turnberry must host the Open – and Swinney must drive it

Hope that you’ll benefit from cheap energy when the government drills, baby, drills rather than building wind turbines. Hope that when your daughter tries out for the track team she won’t have to compete against someone who was born a boy. But first and foremost hope that the factory down the road will reopen and that you will get a job there rather than the job going to the foreigner who arrived yesterday. 

This is America First, the midwife of global economic uncertainty, including in Scotland, a nation with major export interests in the US and therefore with much to lose from a punitive tariff regime.

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America First is also the midwife of global security uncertainty. President Trump’s desire to retrench from global military engagement is, in essence, leaving various geopolitical fields of play to bad actors. President Putin wants to recover Russia’s historical position as the biggest global player in eastern Europe and western Asia, and America’s on-off willingness to let that happen is destabilising Nato, Europe and particularly those western countries which border Russia, in ways the President struggles to understand.

Hardly for the first time, though, it is Gaza which is at the centre of most people’s moral consciousness, and which is central to the protests against President Trump’s Scottish trip, and his meeting with First Minister John Swinney. 

This conflict is tens, or hundreds, or by some interpretations thousands of years old, and therefore expecting a President with little foreign policy experience or interest to solve it is fanciful. However, it is his unwillingness, or at least inability, to persuade Mr Netanyahu of both the moral indecency and the strategic hopelessness of the scale of his retaliation in Gaza which is of most concern. 

This is not where we would wish to be. However it is where we are. Being the leader of a country is, and must be, different from being the leader of a party. It is impure. It requires compromise and diplomacy. And it requires you to do business with people you don’t agree with. 

If we draw a line in the sand here, because of President Trump’s adjacency to Prime Minister Netanyahu, what are the implications? What if the populist formula which elected Trump generates leaders we don’t like in France or Germany, as it has already done in Italy. Should Mr Swinney also refuse to meet them because they are adjacent to President Trump? What if Nigel Farage is Prime Minister of the UK in 2029. Should Mr Swinney refuse to meet him?

And if adjacency is the problem, the list of offenders is endless. Churchill and Stalin. Blair and Gaddafi. Xi Jinping and pretty much every global leader.

No, this is the wrong place to draw the line. John Swinney is right to meet the President during this visit. More than that; to reject the opportunity would have been a dereliction of his duty as Scotland’s leader. He should be welcoming the half-Scottish Donald John Trump with open arms, ready to deal.

I use the word "deal" deliberately. President Trump likes to see himself as a man with considerable dealmaking prowess, but engagements with Presidents Putin and Netanyahu, amongst others, tell us that his dealmaking abilities appear to be considerably less proficient than he would wish us to believe. Why shouldn’t we expect that Mr Swinney can outmanoeuvre President Trump over the next few days and put Scotland in a stronger position?

Of course it is true that Mr Swinney will, to some degree, be deferential. Of course it is true that he will have to pander to the President. Of course it may even be true that he will have to tarnish himself, just a little bit, in order to get the most out of the interaction. 

But this – all of this – is a price worth paying if he can help put President Trump in a position where he is more sympathetic to giving Scotland and the UK a better deal, primarily on tariffs. Scotland is home to the UK’s largest food and drink exports – Scottish salmon and Scotch whisky – both of which are heavily invested in the US import market. 

This matters hugely to Scotland’s economy and to the jobs which depend on these industries. Moreover, salmon and Scotch are part of a Scottish soft power which is highly influential in the US. A soft power which includes the stereotypical tartan and bagpipes, and which crucially also includes golf.

Mr Swinney needs to exploit President Trump’s weak point. The locations of his visit offer the clue about what that is – golf. And so there is one deal, perhaps above all others, which Mr Swinney, in alliance with Sir Keir Starmer and by leaning heavily on the R&A, should seek to do, and that is to offer Trump Turnberry golf’s Open Championship.

Stewart Cink on his way to victory the last time the Open was played at Turnberry, in 2009 (Image: PA)

Having just left Royal Portrush, The Open goes to Royal Birkdale next year before returning to St Andrew’s in 2027. There is no announced venue for 2028, the last Open of the Trump Presidency. It should go to Turnberry.

This would be a win-win. The suitability of the majestic Ailsa course at Turnberry is not in question, including by the R&A. Turnberry’s problem, in this era of larger crowds, is poor transport infrastructure and insufficient accommodation options. Mr Swinney should be looking at this as an opportunity to work with the UK Government, and international investors, to leverage investment in road and rail connections, which would benefit Scotland well beyond the staging of the golf tournament. 

Leaning on the R&A to award Turnberry the Open in 2028 would be a tiny price to pay for a better deal on a range of other issues. It is a deal Mr Swinney should actively try to make.

Welcome to Scotland, Mr President. Come back in 2028 for your Open.

Andy Maciver is Founding Director of Message Matters, and co-host of the Holyrood Sources podcast