Almost 90 years ago, a young woman made her way across the Atlantic, leaving behind her Hebridean home, family and friends to chart a new life for herself in the United States. That woman, Mary Anne MacLeod, was the mother of the 45th and now to be 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump.
Trump’s Scottish roots are well enough known, but relatively little remarked upon in the country of his mother’s birth.
However, his astonishing political comeback has upended many assumptions and raises questions about what, exactly, happens next, from Washington to Ukraine and beyond. For those of us in his ancestral homeland, the hope must be that, for all the talk of tariffs and trade wars, we can see a relationship with the UK and Scotland which is mutually beneficial.
So, rather than simply waiting to see what unfolds, or recoiling at what Trump 2.0 might mean for the world, we should instead aim to work with the grain of current American opinion.
America has elected Trump as its President for the next four years whether we like it or not. We can either look the other way, or we can seek to work with and influence his administration in as positive and productive ways as possible.
Trump came to power, first in 2016 and now once more, on the back of the votes of huge swathes of America which feel forgotten and left behind, perhaps none more so than in the key rustbelt states which he “flipped” from the 2020 election.
That disenchantment in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan, the backbone of working-class America, has been festering for at least a generation. It was Bruce Springsteen, ironically one of Kamala Harris’s celebrity backers, who long ago gave voice to that mood of decline and despair. His mid-1980s ballad My Hometown evoked industrial decay and the changes it wrought on those affected. When the song speaks of the “jobs that are going and ain’t coming back”, it’s a poignant and prescient nod to the economic changes which, over decades, help explain the rise and political resurrection of Trump.
It’s also a lyric and a sentiment which I can easily relate to. Coming from Ayrshire and seeing the way my home community, like so many others across west central Scotland and the rest of the UK in the 1980s, was devastated by the loss of traditional industries and the livelihoods they supported has given me an insight into how many working people in comparable communities in the United States must feel.
But that industrial devastation has also provided the spark which has energised me for the last two decades as I have embarked on a mission to revitalise and regenerate my home community and others like it.
Regeneration is fundamental to business and to society. Reinventing our economies and reimagining our ways of living and working is the key to providing fresh hope for each succeeding generation.
My mission, as an entrepreneur and a passionate advocate of urban regeneration and the communities it supports, is to take that message of hope and renewal, and share my experiences with those in other countries, including the United States, where I believe it is a message that will resonate.
My passion for regeneration is also why I believe we on this side of the Atlantic must look to engage positively with the incoming Trump administration which will begin, ironically, amid a wave of hugely positive economic indicators for the United States. True, many people clearly have not felt that, as the effects of inflation eroded their pay packets.
But the fact remains that under Joe Biden’s administration vast sums of money have been invested in regenerative infrastructure projects and in green jobs which might previously have been lost to other countries.
Trump will now inherit the economic benefits of that investment in regeneration, and – whatever the campaign rhetoric might have been around the green agenda – he knows, as a businessman, that it would be counterproductive to try and unpick a success story. The green economy is here to stay and is just one example of how those who are prepared to engage with the Trump administration must try to help influence things for the better.
It was Scotland’s national bard, Robert Burns, who penned arguably one of the earliest examples of an environmental conscience when he wrote “I’m truly sorry man’s dominion has broken nature’s social union.”
A Republican icon from an earlier age, Abraham Lincoln, was a devotee of Burns, a son of Ayrshire, where Trump now owns a thriving business. As an Ayrshire native myself, I am as keen as anyone to see that the age-old and enduring US-Scottish links, embodied in the incoming resident of the White House, bring benefits to these shores.
Trump is a disruptor, perhaps the ultimate political disruptor. Maybe that is why those of us who come from the business world, where disruption and renewal are integral to the mindset, are prepared to look beyond the fevered campaign language.
You don’t have to agree with all, or any, of Trump’s rhetoric to agree that it is better to work for the common good regardless of who occupies the White House. If our political and business leaders are prepared to be pragmatists by engaging wherever possible, we can hope not only to help steer Trump’s second presidency in the most positive direction possible, but also to reap a share of the benefits, including here in Scotland.
View The Times article here.