Business

Irish pharma exports to US in Trump’s sights

President’s namecheck of Ireland in news event should be concerning for the Government

President Donald Trump in his virtual “town hall” with Fox News at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC on May 3rd. Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times

Tue May 5 2020 - 04:58

President Donald Trump's namecheck of Ireland in a Fox News event on Sunday should be concerning for the Government given the huge dependence of the Irish economy on US foreign direct investment.

It is not the first time Ireland's status as a major exporter of pharmaceutical products has caught the eye of the US president, who has vowed to bring back production in countries like China and Ireland to the US.

Luckily for Ireland, Trump's early focus on the trade imbalance in goods between the United States and Europe has been eclipsed for most of his presidency by the trade war with China.

That may change, especially as it is election year. The coronavirus pandemic has brought the reality of global supply chains home to Americans. There is now regular discussion on cable news about bringing US jobs home – a key priority of Trump during the 2016 election.

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Ireland's ambassador to the United States, Dan Mulhall, was quick to point out on twitter that the presence of US pharma companies in Ireland "is of huge value to those companies as they can access EU and other markets tariff-free from Ireland. That is ultimately to the significant benefit of the US economy."

But Trump’s real concern is with the drugs that are manufactured in Ireland, mostly by American companies, and shipped to the US. A hefty €21.2 billion worth of medicinal and pharma products went to the US from Ireland last year.

Similarly, the argument regularly made by visiting Irish Ministers to the US, and the American Chamber of Commerce, that Irish companies employ more than 100,000 people in the United States is a red herring. A huge chunk of these jobs are accounted for by large corporates like CRH, who expanded in the US by acquiring homegrown companies in the first place.

Ireland is not alone in highlighting the two-way nature of transatlantic trade. Germany has been at pains to remind Trump of the number of BMWs made in South Carolina, for example.

The reality is, however, that the coronavirus pandemic has thrown a spotlight on globalisation, and left many Americans asking why vital drugs are not being made at home.

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