US President Donald Trump departed for Scotland on Friday for a mix of diplomacy, business and leisure, as a huge UK security operation swung into place amid planned protests near his family-owned golf resorts.
The president, whose mother was born in Scotland, is expected to split his time between two seaside golf courses bearing his name, in Turnberry on the southwestern coast and Aberdeen in the northeast.
Air Force One was due to arrive around at 8:20 pm local time (1920 GMT) with the president and White House staff, and Trump has no public events scheduled for Saturday or Sunday, the White House said.
However, he is due to meet with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer during the trip.
"We're going to do a little celebrating together, because we got along very well," Trump told reporters as he left the White House Friday, calling Starmer "a good guy" doing "a very good job".
He said they would discuss "fine tuning" the bilateral trade deal struck in May, and would "maybe even improve it".
But the unpredictable American leader appeared unwilling to cede to a UK demand for flexibility over reduced steel and aluminium tariffs.
Trump has exempted London from blanket 50 percent tariffs on imports of both metals, but the fate of that carve-out remains unclear.
"If I do it for one, I have to do it for all," Trump told reporters, when asked if he had any "wiggle room" for the UK on the issue.
The international outcry over the conflict in Gaza may also be on the pair's agenda, as Starmer faces growing pressure to follow French President Emmanuel Macron and announce that Britain will also recognize a Palestinian state.
- Protests -
Trump is expected to return to the UK in September for a state visit -- his second -- at the invitation of King Charles III, which promises to be lavish.
During a 2023 visit, Trump said he felt at home in Scotland, where his mother Mary Anne MacLeod grew up on the remote Isle of Lewis before emigrating to the United States at age 18.
Residents, environmentalists and elected officials have voiced discontent over the Trump family's construction of a new golf course, which he is expected to open before he departs the UK on Tuesday.
Police Scotland, which is bracing for mass protests in Edinburgh and Aberdeen as well as close to Trump's golf courses, have said there will be a "significant operation across the country over many days".
Scottish First Minister John Swinney, who will also meet Trump during the visit, said the nation "shares a strong friendship with the United States that goes back centuries".
He added it would provide Scotland with a "platform to make its voice heard on the issues that matter, including war and peace, justice and democracy".
Trump has also stepped into the sensitive debate in the UK about green energy and reaching net zero, with Aberdeen being the heart of Scotland's oil industry.
In May, he wrote on his Truth Social platform that the UK should "stop with the costly and unsightly windmills" as he urged incentivizing drilling for oil in the North Sea.
