Why the First Minister shouldn’t meet with Trump

I was on the Holyrood Sources podcast recently and the hosts challenged me on why I think the First Minister should turn down the ‘opportunity’ of meeting with Donald Trump.

In their eyes meeting with those whose views or actions we disagree with is just part of the job and after all, the US is an important export market for Scottish businesses.

My response was simple - John Swinney would not meet with Vladimir Putin or Benjamin Netanyahu and there is no moral distinction between those men and Trump. There are moral limits.

We look back with shame at the UK Government’s long support for the apartheid regime in South Africa, particularly under Thatcher. Boycotting, sanctioning and isolating that cruel government was clearly the right approach. I’m willing to bet that history will look back just as unkindly on those who treated Trump as just another world leader and his administration as just another government, even if isolating a superpower like the US is less of a realistic near-term aim.

Of course John Swinney should meet with people he or I disagree with. The centre-right and conservatives may be profoundly disagreeable but in a democratic world we need to talk to our opponents.

Donald Trump isn’t a conservative though, he is a fascist.

As we speak his masked goons are snatching people off the streets in the United States despite them having committed no crimes and disappearing them to prisons in other countries, out of the reach of their families and lawyers.

And what’s more, he is a sexual abuser. A jury found that he sexually abused E Jean Carroll and the judge presiding over the case confirmed that this met the common definition of rape.

That was far from an isolated incident. He has infamously bragged about being able to get away with grabbing women by the genitals and many other accusers have yet to have their day in court.

Surely survivors of sexual abuse in Scotland deserve to see their politicians united in condemnation of those who revel in committing sexual violence?

Right now though, one reason to condemn Trump stands above all others.

He and his government are active enablers and funders of Israel’s genocide in Palestine. Hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons, military equipment and economic support flow constantly from the US to Israel. And now he is attacking and sanctioning the United Nations and International Criminal Court officials trying to hold Israel accountable for its terrible crimes.

Donald Trump is the one man who could undoubtedly end the forced starvation and genocide today if he really wanted to.

The First Minister would not have met with the Assad regime in Syria, or the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. I have stood alongside him to commemorate the victims of past genocides years after year.

And I wish I could believe that he will use this meeting to challenge Trump for enabling the worst crime against humanity of this era. But I can’t.

It’s quite clear that the focus of this discussion will be ‘trade’ i.e. trying to charm Trump into exempting products like Scotch whisky from his tariffs. As I’ve said previously though, charm offensives sooner or later blow up in the faces of everyone who has ever tried it with Trump.

The best thing we can do for Scottish exports right now is support businesses currently exporting to the US to diversify into other markets. There is no way to reliably protect our access to a market controlled by a man who has multiple different positions on tariffs each day.

American alcohol like bourbon has come off the shelves in Canada after Trump’s attacks on their sovereignty. That’s a huge opportunity for Scotch whisky (and for the Scottish Government office in Ottawa to prove its worth!).

The reasons to protest Trump are almost endless. Sexual abuser, climate wrecker, genocide enabler, racist, fascist, demagogue.

Then there’s the fact he has already been found guilty of falsifying business records in relation to his Scottish golf course. And the allegations of money laundering.

Economic expediency is not a good enough reason to compromise Scotland’s moral standing.

So one last time I urge the First Minister to think of how those inevitable photos of him grinning alongside the 45th President will look when the history books are written.