The United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union, its government is in chaos, the pound is dropping like a stone … but never mind all that. What impact will it have on Donald Trump’s business interests?
“If the pound goes down, more people are coming to Turnberry, frankly,” he said, referring to the location of his resort. “For traveling and for other things, I think it very well could turn out to be positive.”
When a reporter pointed out that “the country is not a golf course,” Trump’s response was a staggering “no, it’s not, but you’d be amazed how similar it is.” That’s a statement that should give American voters pause, since Trump has driven his Scottish golf courses into the ground, financially speaking.
It may be no wonder that Trump’s response to Brexit is so astonishingly tone-deaf, given that just a couple weeks ago he didn’t know what Brexit was. But as Britain’s exit from the EU has risen to the top of the headlines, and is now one of the highest-profile stories in the world, Trump’s understanding of what’s going on doesn’t seem to have progressed beyond the tweet level. And even his tweets show that he doesn’t understand what he’s seeing, despite his claims to having foreseen the outcome of the vote.
One aspect of the UK Leave campaign Trump might want to know about (while hoping American voters don’t hear about it) is that one of the promises made if the UK left the EU was that money would be diverted to the National Health Service—only to have the leader of the UK Independence Party say immediately after the vote that that pledge was a “mistake.” That seems like a perfectly Trump way to campaign: “We’ll dedicate lots of money to something that benefits the vast majority of people. Ha ha ha no we totally won’t, either.”