Former White House ethics experts have warned that Donald Trump could exploit a new trade deal with the UK to boost his private tourism businesses in Scotland.

Richard Painter, the White House chief ethics adviser to George W Bush, and Norman Eisen, former chief ethics adviser to the Obama administration, said there was a clear risk the incoming US president would attempt to promote the interests of his golf resorts when talks start on a post-Brexit US trade deal with the UK.

Painter said Trump was “obviously very, very interested financially and emotionally” in his golf courses, which would “dramatically affect what the United States position is on trade”.

“Our man has a dog in the hunt,” he said.

Trump owns two prominent golf resorts in Scotland, having spent more than £40m ($50m) building a new course and boutique hotel in Aberdeenshire and another £140m ($173m) acquiring and upgrading the Turnberry championship course and five-star hotel in Ayrshire.

Both businesses are supported and promoted by Scotland’s official tourism and event agencies, despite long-running political conflicts between Trump and the Scottish government over its staunch support for an offshore windfarm near his Aberdeenshire resort.

Trump told the Times and the German Bild newspaper in an interview at the weekend that he planned to prioritise a new trade deal with the UK to take effect once Britain leaves the European Union. “We’re gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly – good for both sides,” he said.

He used the same interview to promote the Turnberry resort, saying it was “doing unbelievably” following the slump in the value of the pound since the UK’s decision to leave the EU.

Turnberry executives told the Guardian on Monday the previously loss-making business was on course to have its most profitable year in a century following Trump’s investment and a sharp jump in US visitors attracted by the pound’s fall against the dollar.



Trump’s Aberdeenshire course has consistently lost money, relying for its survival on loans now totalling £40m from Trump. The company said last week it planned to press ahead with its expansion plans, building a second course and extending its hotel, despite Trump’s pledge last week he would halt new and pending foreign investments by the Trump Organization.



Eisen, a recent US ambassador to the Czech Republic and now an analyst with the Brookings Institute thinktank, said alarm about the conflicts between Trump’s new role as US president and his complex business interests had intensified since the president-elect published his plan last week to distance himself from the Trump Organization.

Eisen and Painter lead a bipartisan ethics watchdog, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), as chairman and vice-chairman respectively.

Eisen said Trump’s refusal to sell his business interests or to place them in a blind trust, instead pledging to pass control to his sons Eric and Donald Jr and a Trump Organization executive, Allen Weisselberg, violated constitutional and bipartisan conventions dating back decades.

The Trump Organization has denied there will be any conflict between the Trump administration and his family business but Eisen said all modern presidents had entirely divested themselves of personal financial interests.

“It’s like saying to his kids: ‘Hold my wallet,’” he said. “[Trump] even warned them that they better do a good job or he would fire them. That kind of retention of ownership is antithetical to the concept that Democratic and Republican presidents have embraced for decades and it will put him athwart the constitution almost immediately.”

Trump was now able to use “the full force of the United States government to attempt to extract concessions” that would benefit his Scottish businesses in future UK trade talks, Eisen added. If he did so, Eisen said, that would be a clear breach of the constitutional bar on US presidents using their office for personal gain – the so-called emoluments clause.

“It’s entirely possible, based on the porous conflict [plan] that he has announced, he will demand these concessions as part of his trade negotiations – based on what we know about his style of doing business and his erroneous view that conflict laws don’t apply to him.

“However, if he does that, he will be mistaken. The concessions that he would be seeking constitute foreign government benefits of a kind that are forbidden to him under the emoluments clause under the US constitution when he takes office.

“By retaining ownership of the Trump Organization and simply relinquishing management to his sons, any of these unconstitutional benefits are fully attributable to him.”

Asked about the warnings from Painter and Eisen, George Sorial, executive vice-president of the Trump Organization, said: “Don and Eric Trump, along with longtime executive Allen Weisselberg, will control the Trump Organization and make decisions regarding the future of all assets and operations.

“The president-elect will have no knowledge or input in this process. The only policies the president-elect will pursue will be those that benefit the American people.”

At the height of the controversy over Trump’s incendiary attacks on Mexican migrants and Muslims during the presidential election campaign, he was stripped of his role as an honorary Scottish business ambassador by Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister. Her predecessor Alex Salmond supported a petition calling for Trump to be barred from visiting the UK.

VisitScotland, the government-funded tourism agency, said it promoted Trump’s golf courses and actively encouraged American visitors because golf was so significant to the tourism industry, generating £220m for the economy.

It was politically neutral, a spokesman said, but he said the resorts were premium attractions. “As five-star resorts, both Trump Turnberry and Trump International Golf Links [in Aberdeenshire] will continue to be promoted as part of the country’s rich golf offering.”