Remarks at the Grand Opening Ceremony of Trump International Golf Links Aberdeen in Aberdeen, United Kingdom

Well, that is a beautiful sound. And we want to thank them. What talent. And you have young ones, and you have a little older ones, and they're going to be—the younger ones are going to be doing that for 60 years, just like the little older ones are doing. And I want to thank them very much. Great group. Heard them last night.

I also want to thank your First Minister, who's here. John, would you stand up? John Swinney—who's a terrific guy and loves golf and loves the people of this country, and we really appreciate it. You're really a very special guy. Thank you very much for everything, John.

My son Eric has worked so hard on this, and it's been truly a labor of love for him. And we started with a beautiful piece of land, but we made it much more beautiful. And the area has given us—they've really welcomed us.

If you remember, at the beginning, it wasn't quite a welcome—[laughter]—but it wasn't bad. But with time, they've liked us more and more. Now they love us, and we love them. They've really put it out, and they know how good this whole complex is. It's Trump International.

We have the first course, which we call the old course, and the second course, which we call the new course, because that's the best way to describe. Anything else gets too complicated. They don't know which is which, but they know the old and the new. And it's going to be something very special.

And the big question is, which is going to be better, if there's such a thing, because we've had such great ratings on the first, I don't know if you can match them on the second. But the second should be every bit as good. The land is of equal quality, right on the North Sea. And it's going to be—really, it's—it's going to be great. I look forward to playing it today.

We'll play it very quickly, and then I go back to DC and we put out fires all over the world. We did one yesterday. As you know, we stopped a war. But we've stopped about five wars. So that's much more important than playing golf, as much as I like it. It's much more important. [Laughter]

I want to just thank Sarah Malone for having been with us right from the beginning. She was young and not experienced. Now she's still young and very experienced. So I just want to thank you and my—and my son Don for—for being with us all the way. He's always been with us. And he's a great guy, and he's got some great golfers in the family—Kai—and he's got one right over there, that little one. She may be one of the most talented in the whole family. She's something special, right? So that's Chloe. She's—you'll be reading about her someday, walking down the 18th hole of some great course, I think. Right? She's very talented, actually.

So I just want to thank everybody. This has been an unbelievable development. The land, they said it couldn't get zoned; it was an impossibility. And Sean Connery said, "Let the bloody bloke build his golf course." Once he said that, everything came into line. John and I were talking about it last night. Everything came into line.

I want to thank—by the way, the Prime Minister was here last night and was really very gracious and loves the place, loves the area. So I just want to thank him very much for coming. And we gave him a little preview, and it was really very nice.

And we just signed a very big deal, as you know, with the European Union, but also with the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom was a week before, and it's a very big deal and a great deal for the country, and it's a great deal for everybody. So I just want to thank him and everybody that worked so hard on it.

So they've been trying to get it done for 12 years. We got it done. So somebody did a good job.

So I just guess we're going to be hitting a couple of balls, and we're going to play the round.

And, Lara, I want to thank you—the head of the Republican Party for—during the election, which was the time that counted, and she was fantastic. And, Ron and Larry, thank you very much—and everybody.

We just had tremendous, tremendous support from everybody, especially the family. These are very hard to build, and you won't see them built anymore. You'll probably never see another course built in the dunes, not dunes like this.

Who—the groundskeepers, who I know so well from—number one, the first thing I said, "Which is better, the old or the new?" And they were unable to give me an answer. They actually meant it. But great job you've done with your course superintendent—who's been here for a long time, and we just want to thank you.

And to all of our friends—to all of our great friends, thank you very much.

So I'll be playing quickly, and then I'll be heading back, and I look forward to that, but I really look forward to playing. So thank you, everybody, and thank you to the media.

The media has been terrific, believe it or not. [Laughter] I didn't use the—see? I didn't use the word "fake news" one time. Not one time. Today they're not fake news. Today they're wonderful news. But I just want to thank you. They've treated us really well, and they respect what we've done, really, at a level that you rarely see nowadays. So I really very much appreciate it. And we're going to go out and we're going to have a good time.

Thank you, all of the dignitaries and all of my friends. It's going to be a special day, and it's going to be a special year, and it's going to be a special decade. And we're going to make all of our countries strong and great and really wonderful again. And that's happening, and it's happening very fast.

And we love Scotland. You know, my mother was born here and she loved it. She would come back here religiously once a year during the summers with my sister Maryanne and sometimes my sister Elizabeth. But they would come here religiously. And Stornoway—that's serious Scotland, by the way. There's no doubt about that. So—the Isle of Lewis.

I want to just thank everybody. And have a good time today. Play well. Enjoy yourselves. And many, many years—we'll see each other many, many years.

Thank you very much, everybody.

[At this point, the program continued. The President then continued his remarks as follows.]

Okay. Are we ready? Are we ready?

So may God bless everyone: everyone here and everyone everywhere. We have a world that's got some conflict, but we've ironed out a lot of it. We're going to have a great and peaceful world. And, on a much smaller scale, this will be a tremendously successful place and a place where people can come and enjoy life. And it's very special. So I hope everybody in Scotland and well beyond Scotland enjoys it for many, many years to come.

Let's go. One, two, three.

[The President cut the ceremonial ribbon.]

Thank you, everybody.