Police on buggies guard the Trump Turnberry golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, on Friday ahead of President Trump's visit to Scotland. (AP photo)

EDINBURGH, Scotland — Lashed by cold winds and overlooking choppy, steel-gray North Sea waters, the breathtaking sand dunes of Scotland’s northeastern coast rank among Donald Trump’s favorite spots on earth.

“At some point, maybe in my very old age, I’ll go there and do the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen,” Trump said in 2023, during his New York civil fraud trial, talking about his plans for future developments on his property in Balmedie, Aberdeenshire.

At 79 and back in the White House, Trump is making at least part of that pledge a reality, traveling to Scotland on Friday as his family’s business prepares for the Aug. 13 opening of a new course it’s billing as “the greatest 36 holes in golf.”

Trump will be in Scotland until Tuesday and plans to talk trade with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The Aberdeen area is already home to another of his courses, Trump International Scotland, and the Republican president also plans to visit a Trump course near Turnberry, around 200 miles away on Scotland’s southwest coast.

Using a presidential overseas trip — with its sprawling entourage of advisers, White House and support staffers, Secret Service agents and reporters — to help show off Trump-brand golf destinations demonstrates how the president has become increasingly comfortable intermingling his governing pursuits with promoting his family’s business interests.

The White House has brushed off questions about potential conflicts of interest, arguing Trump’s business success before he entered politics was a key to his appeal with voters.

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers called the Scotland swing a “working trip.”

Trump family’s new golf course has tee times for sale

Trump went to Scotland to play his Turnberry course during his first term in 2018 while en route to a meeting in Finland with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This time, his trip comes as the new golf course is about to debut and is already actively selling tee times.

It’s not cheap for the president to travel.

The helicopters that operate as Marine One when the president is on board cost between $16,700 and nearly $20,000 per hour to operate, according to Pentagon data for fiscal year 2022. The modified Boeing 747s that serve as the iconic Air Force One cost about $200,000 per hour to fly. That’s not to mention the military cargo aircraft that fly ahead of the president with his armored limousines and other official vehicles.

“We’re at a point where the Trump administration is so intertwined with the Trump business that he doesn’t seem to see much of a difference,” said Jordan Libowitz, vice president for the ethics watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “It’s as if the White House were almost an arm of the Trump Organization.”

Trump’s first Aberdeen course has sparked legal battles

Trump’s existing Aberdeenshire course, meanwhile, has a history nearly as rocky as the area’s cliffs.

It has struggled to turn a profit and was found by Scottish conservation authorities to have partially destroyed nearby sand dunes. Trump’s company also was ordered to cover the Scottish government’s legal costs after the course unsuccessfully sued over the construction of a nearby wind farm, arguing in part that it hurt golfers’ views.

And the development was part of the massive civil case, which accused Trump of inflating his wealth to secure loans and make business deals.

Trump’s company’s initial plans for his first Aberdeen-area course called for a luxury hotel and nearby housing. His company received permission to build 500 houses, but Trump suggested he’d be allowed to build five times as many and borrowed against their values without actually building any homes, the lawsuit alleged.

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Associated Press writer Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.