He’s currently preoccupied by his battle for popularity against other candidates seeking the US Republican presidential nomination, yet Donald Trump has still found time to advise prime minister David Cameron on Scottish issues.
The billionaire, whose own relationship with Scotland has been something of a rollercoaster, claimed that the country would benefit from a White House occupied by him, emphasising his Caledonian heritage.
However, Trump believed Cameron should have ruled out a second Scottish independence referendum for another half century. Speaking of a potential rerun of last year’s independence referendum, he said: “I don’t know how they can do that – go through all that again. I’ve never heard of a thing like that. It’s crazy.”
In an interview with Scotland’s Press and Journal newspaper, he added: “You would’ve thought that Cameron, or whoever was planning it, would’ve said ‘we’ll do this now but if we win you can’t do it for another 50 years’.”
Trump has been a divisive figure in Scotland where environmental campaigners urged him earlier this summer to stop trying to thwart the search for green energy after an appeal court threw out his latest bid to block a major offshore windfarm.
The same controversy saw him hit out at former first minister Alex Salmond – originally a powerful ally for the New York-based property developer.
In his latest remarks, Trump claimed that he had been keen to avoid becoming involved in Scottish politics.
“I didn’t want to get involved in it, but people asked me and I think Scotland is better being unified as opposed to being independent,” he said.
Last month, Trump used a brief trip to the golf course he owns in Balmedie, near Aberdeen, to declare that if elected as US president he would “unite the world”, expand the US military and “get along very well” with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.
Trump said he would work to build closer links between the US, Scotland and the UK if he became president. “I love Scotland, so I think it would be a good thing, because I love Scotland,” he said. “Certainly that’s a very important relationship.”
