Donald Trump, who unveiled a trade agreement with the UK on Thursday, is proud of his roots on the windswept Scottish island where his mother grew up, but its residents are less enthused by her famous son.
In contrast to the Trump brand’s glitz and glamour, his ancestral home on the Isle of Lewis, northwest Scotland, is quite modest.
The house, around 200 metres (220 yards) from the sea, is constructed from light grey plaster with a slate roof, in keeping with Lewis’s austere and harsh landscape, sculpted by the Atlantic winds.
Mary Anne MacLeod, Donald Trump’s mother, was born on the island in 1912 and lived in the small village of Tong until the age of 18.
Her son visited briefly in 2008 for a photograph and to meet some cousins, but it is hard to imagine a place more different from his luxurious Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida or Trump Tower in New York.
Trump may bring up his Scottish roots less often than his predecessor Joe Biden mentioned his Irish background, but he always speaks warmly of the country of his beloved mother, and the UK in general.
He owns two golf courses in Scotland, and is expected to open a third soon.
In 2018, Theresa May, then Britain’s prime minister, gave him the family tree of his Scottish ancestors.
“It’s great to be home, this was the home of my mother,” he proclaimed upon landing in Aberdeen, in northeast Scotland, for a 2023 visit to his golf courses.
But on Lewis, where the locals are generally welcoming and talkative, simply mentioning Donald Trump’s name is enough to impose a curtain of silence: it seems no one wants to talk about him.
‘Shame on you’
“Have you seen the banner? That’s what the majority of people think about him, but they don’t want to talk about something controversial,” explained a Tong resident, who declined to give her name.
The banner hangs in front of a shop in the harbour of Stornoway, the island’s largest town, and reads in bold black letters: “Shame on you, Donald John! #democracy”.
The shop’s owner Sarah Venus, who was born in the United States but later moved to Lewis, said she had received “overwhelming support” from locals and US tourists.
There is no need to add Trump’s name to the banner, she explained, as passers-by know exactly who is being targeted, even though Donald John is a very common handle on the island, which has a population of fewer than 20,000 people.
His mother’s maiden name, MacLeod, is also the most common surname on Lewis.
Venus criticised the president for his anti-immigration policies, even though “his mother was a migrant”.
To learn more about Mary Anne MacLeod, you need to meet Bill Lawson. He is a minor celebrity on the island due to his painstaking work, over decades, compiling the residents’ family trees.
MacLeod had several brothers and sisters, “probably eight,” said the 87-year-old Lawson, adding that she was one of the eldest siblings.
Her father — Donald Trump’s grandfather — was a fisherman and farmer.
“At that time, you’re living off what was available, so you get a small amount of living off the land itself. If the weather was suitable, if you had a decent boat, you did fishing,” explained Lawson.
But there was a massive emigration from Lewis in the early 1920s as its resources were no longer able to sustain its growing population.
“It was big enough that the shipping lines sent ships to Stornoway. They all came into Stornoway and filled up with emigrants,” mostly heading to Canada and the eastern United States, said the amateur genealogist.
Mary Anne MacLeod left the port of Stornoway in 1930 to join her sister in New York.
It was there that she met real estate developer Fred Trump, whom she married in 1936, propelling her up the social ladder.
Lewis residents are more likely to talk about Mary Anne MacLeod than her son, saying she returned to the island regularly until her death in 2000.
One of her daughters, a sister of the president, “was here quite a lot too. They did a lot of good work,” having donated £200,000 ($265,000) to establish a care home, said Lawson.
Donald Trump, however, is “a stranger here”, he added.