SNP First Minister John Swinney has warned of “real difficulties” ahead if US President-elect Trump follows through on policy.

The First Minister offered Mr Trump his “congratulations” on X (formerly Twitter), adding: “We will stand fast in support of our values of fairness, democracy and equality — ideals America was built on.”

But speaking of Mr Trump — whose mother hailed from the Western Isles — on a later visit to a distillery, the First Minister warned of the need to continue the war in Ukraine “to repel the Russian aggression,” before turning to import tariffs on Scotch levied by the last Trump administration.