Donald Trump’s two Scottish golf courses reportedly earned him £46 million while he was serving as the 45th President of the United States.
The former president made $82.5 million (£66.2 million) from his businesses in Ireland and Scotland between 2017 to 2021, according to an analysis of his tax returns by US government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
Trump, who is running for president in 2024, owns two golf courses in Scotland at Turnberry in South Ayrshire and on the Menie Estate in the Balmedie area of Aberdeenshire.
CREW said that all the revenue came with “extraordinary conflicts of interest, mixing Trump’s personal financial interests with the national interests of the United States”.
READ MORE: Neil Mackay: Trump is more likely to end up in the jail house than the White House
The watchdog stated in its reported, published earlier this week, that Trump also earned around $25 million (£20 million) from his golf course in Doonbeg, Ireland.
CREW also said that Trump’s three properties in Scotland and Ireland “are among the biggest liabilities of his empire”.
Trump visited Scotland last month to “see and inspect" his two properties here and cut the ribbon on a second course in Aberdeen.
He previously spent two days at his Turnberry course while in office in July of 2018, meeting the then prime minister, Theresa May, and the Queen during the visit.
Back in February, The Herald reported that the company which owns Trump’s Ayrshire golf course, Golf Recreation Scotland, posted a more than £15 million loss in 2021.
According to accounts lodged with Companies House, the group made a loss of £14.7 million in 2021, despite an operating profit of just over £1 million, as a result of depreciation, foreign currency exchange and “exceptional items”.
Accounts for the Trump family’s Aberdeenshire course, meanwhile, showed a £696,000 loss in 2021 – an improvement on its £1.3 million deficit the previous year.
READ MORE: Scottish airport hails new 'Christmas market' route with German giant
In September last year, New York’s Attorney General accused Donald Trump of fraudulently inflating the valuations of his Scottish properties by millions of pounds.
According a lawsuit filed by Letitia James, New York’s most senior lawyer, the Trump organisation "improperly and materially inflated the value of the golf course" in Aberdeenshire and gave "materially false and misleading valuations" for the Turnberry resort.
Between 2017 and 2019, the U.S. military spent almost $200,000 (£160,000) at Trump Turnberry, according to documents that the Pentagon sent to Congress.
The spending paid for the equivalent of hundreds of nights of rooms at the resort over approximately three dozen separate stays.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel