(Balmedie) “Fiasco”, “loss of money”, destructive of the environment: In the small Scottish village of Balmedie, the expansion of one of the European golf clubs owned by US President Donald Trump makes people nervous.
Under a Mexican flag, on the roof of his house overlooking the North Sea, David Milne surveys the Trump International Golf Links. Since its construction in 2006, he has been fiercely opposing the complex, but only a second route has been authorized by local authorities.
“This golf course is not fair at all! The current course is losing money, it has never made a profit, “he raises the storm for AFP,” so why do you want to build each other up and destroy the landscape even more? ”
The Scotsman racially reveals the coastal paths that once pleased tourists and bird lovers. Now, it is almost impossible to walk between the windswept beach dunes, barbed wire blocking the way.
«Fiasco»
Trump International Golf Links is one of three golf resources that owns the wealthiest businessman-president of the United States. While one is in Ireland, two are in Scotland, born in the Isle of Lewis (northwest), her mother Mary’s ancestral land.
When he acquired the complex’s 567 hectares in 2006, the businessman promised, in his identifiable hyperbolic style, to make it “the world’s best golf course”, creating 6,000 jobs and raising 1 billion pounds (1.7) Promised to invest. Billion Canadian dollars).
Photo MICHAL WACHUCIK, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Opened in 2012, the complex, which eventually employs 650 people, has yet to achieve the expected success: it lost more than one million pounds in 2018, as well as the previous year.
David Milne says Donald Trump offered him $ 260,000 in exchange for his house, jewelry and a club membership that rises along the course, an offer he declined. In retaliation, the club then erected a barricade in front of his house, they say, for which Trump billed him for $ 3,500.
Hence the Mexican flag that embellishes their home, “When I heard Trump talking about the border wall and hoisted it while paying Mexican.” Milne says “what they tried to do here before”.
Photo MICHAL WACHUCIK, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
David Milne appears flying in front of the Scottish and Mexican flags at his home.
Contacted by AFP, the company managing the complex did not respond.
Planned on a dune when construction of the new curriculum began, local elected representative Paul Johnson also spoke out against the project for ecological reasons. “Should prove his ability beforehand,” he said, adding that “many people probably feel cheated by this fiasco”.
Positive impact”
But golf also has its ardent supporters. Half an hour from the resort, Stewart Spence, owner of the 5-star Marcliffe Hotel in Aberdeen, says its construction has had a positive impact.
“The business it brought to the region is huge”, enthuses the Septuagenarian, describing the economic “benefits” for restaurants, hotels and drivers: “People come and stay for two or three nights “They dine at my place one evening, then go and try the restaurant.”
Prior to his election in 2016, Donald Trump traveled to Scotland where he was greeted at Glasgow Airport by a sarcastic mariachi group, “Juan Direction”, filled with bricks to protest against the wall in Mexico There was a wheel.
While the billionaire is seeking a second term in the White House, David Milne says he considers his political opponents 6,000 kilometers away.
If friends who refuse to topple his land promise to supply him with a Mexican flag for life, the Scotsman hopes to soon be able to lower the standard.
“I said that as long as Trump is president, he will hoist the flag. If he loses the election, I will lower the flag. “He said that” it would no longer be necessary “because the Mexican people” won “again.