Donald Trump’s Scots golf resort loses another £1m

Donald Trump’s Aberdeenshire golf resort has made a loss for the seventh consecutive year, according to the accounts.

Documents lodged at Companies House show the Trump International Golf Club made a loss of £1.07m in 2018.

It is a slight improvement on the previous year’s losses of £1.25m.

The resort at the Menie Estate opened in 2012 after a planning wrangle lasting several years, but has continued to lose money.

Mr Trump promised to spend £1bn and create 6,000 jobs developing the resort which he stated would be the “greatest golf course in the world”.

The most recent accounts reveal just 77 people were employed by the business, down from 84 in 2017.

Plans for a second 18-hole course at Menie as well as a 550-home development with shops and food outlets were approved by councillors last month.

The Trump organisation said there was no market to support its original plans for a five-star hotel.

Plans for upmarket homes around Trump’s Turnberry resort were rejected last week by South Ayrshire council, threatening efforts by the Trump Organisation to stem heavy losses there.

Meanwhile, politicians in the US are demanding the White House release files it’s claimed show Donald Trump pushed Ukraine to produce information damaging to Joe Biden’s presidential run.

A writ has been issued by a government committee as part of the Democrats’ impeachment investigation.

The President has so far resisted attempts to produce documents and witnesses for the inquiry.

The US House of Representatives’ Oversight and Reform Committee chairman, Elijah Cummings, had threatened the subpoena on Wednesday after the White House ignored two letters in September.

Mr Trump was withholding military aid to Ukraine when he used a July phone call to ask its president to investigate Mr Biden over an unfounded corruption allegation.

Mr Trump said he would formally object to the impeachment investigation, even as he acknowledged that House Democrats “have the votes” to proceed.

Democrats warned Mr Trump is “on a path of defiance, obstruction and cover-up” and said defying their subpoena would be considered “evidence of obstruction” – potentially an impeachable offence.