Tariffs, Turnberry, and Trump’s Broadway Escape Act

From imaginary trade deals to cheating on the golf course, and blasting “Memories” to dodge Epstein questions, Trump’s Scotland trip is equal parts farce and self-parody.

On a sunny Scottish Sunday, Donald Trump staged a diplomatic cosplay event at his Turnberry golf course, complete with ballrooms, bluster, and Ursula von der Leyen politely attempting not to scream. What was billed as a high-stakes transatlantic trade summit quickly devolved into a meandering press conference that doubled as a Trump-branded golf infomercial and a windmill hatefest.

Sitting beside the European Commission president, Trump declared victory in the form of a “framework” trade deal that he insisted was the “biggest ever.” And in typical Trump fashion, it came with zero documentation, no implementation timeline, and a pile of contradictions taller than his hair in a Scottish breeze.

According to CNN’s breathless reporting, the United States and European Union have agreed to a 15% across-the-board tariff, which, fun fact, is higher than the existing 10% baseline the EU was clinging to. Somehow this hike was presented as a compromise. Trump, naturally, called it a triumph of fairness.

Also included in this diplomatic improv:

• A Trump-claimed $750 billion in EU energy purchases without any details on type, duration, or whether any of it is real.

• $600 billion in “additional investment” in the U.S., again with no contracts, just vibes.

• Vague promises of military equipment sales, which seem to be negotiated primarily by yelling “BUY OUR STUFF” into a ballroom chandelier.

Pharmaceuticals, the #1 category of U.S.–EU trade (hello, Ireland), were excluded from the deal because Trump still insists on threatening 200% tariffs on foreign-made drugs while also saying Europe will “make drugs for us.” Schrödinger’s pharma policy.

Ursula von der Leyen, ever the professional, described the negotiation as “very tough” and emphasized the need for “predictability” and “rebalancing.” Which is the diplomatic equivalent of a teacher smiling through clenched teeth while a student eats glue in the corner and insists it’s dinner.

But all of that policy pantomime might still have been overshadowed by the day’s most honest moment: Trump, caught on camera during his “working trip,” watching as a staffer discreetly tossed his golf ball out of the rough and onto the green. He stepped out of his golf cart seconds later and approached the lie like he’d just nailed the approach shot of the century, because of course he did.

Trump cheating at golf is about as surprising as him lying at a press conference, or grifting off taxpayer-funded travel. It’s not just a pattern, it’s a personality. Cheated on his wives, cheated on his taxes, cheated his creditors, cheated the 2020 election, and now he’s cheating to shave strokes while the world is watching.

All this while he ranted (again) about windmills ruining his view, a decade-long personal grudge stemming from his failed lawsuit to stop a Scottish wind farm off the coast of his resort. He claimed wind energy kills birds, ruins the landscape, is too expensive, makes whales beach themselves, and is made of toxic Chinese death blades that can’t be buried. It was part conspiracy theory, part therapy session.

Scottish Green Party leader Patrick Harvie wasn’t having it. In a recent interview, Harvie eviscerated Trump’s environmental destruction, his bullying of local officials, and the inflated value of his golf resorts, some of which, as Harvie noted, were cited in fraud cases back in the U.S. Scotland, Harvie reminded viewers, didn’t forget what Trump did to their protected coastal lands. Nor did they miss that the only reason this “working visit” happened was to funnel more taxpayer dollars into Trump’s personal properties.

And even from 3,500 miles away, Trump couldn’t escape the Epstein scandal. Reporters in Scotland asked him, point-blank, whether he could outrun the revelations. Trump, visibly rattled, snapped: “Only you would think that.” But even that weak deflection didn’t stop the questions, so someone in his entourage resorted to a time-honored authoritarian tactic: drowning out dissent with theater. A speaker hidden in his convoy suddenly started blaring the song “Memories” from Cats, as if the entire summit had turned into a surreal Andrew Lloyd Webber fever dream.

Nothing says I am innocent and stable quite like hijacking the soundscape with Broadway ballads to avoid discussing your ties to a dead pedophile.

The moment perfectly captured Trump’s entire escape strategy: don’t address it, distract from it, and when in doubt, crank the show tunes. He fled the U.S. just as the pressure mounted, right when fresh documents, photos, and video tied him more explicitly to Epstein’s circle. He was hoping a taxpayer-funded trip to his own golf resort would act as a firewall. Instead, it became just another stage for embarrassment, evasion, and one of the most pathetic cover-up soundtracks in modern memory.

The headlines may say Trump struck a “deal.” But behind the scenes, it was all very on-brand: make it up, spin the press, rage at clean energy, and cheat at golf. A scam artist through and through, still playing dirty, whether it’s a fairway or a trade war.