This State’s exposure to US president Donald Trump’s protectionist pivot just got a lot bigger.
The latest trade figures for 2024 show that more than a third of our goods exports, worth €72.6 billion, went to the United States last year, up €18.6 billion (34 per cent) on the previous year.
The bulk of this is pharma and organic chemicals produced by US multinationals here for the US market.
This offshoring of US pharma production is now in Trump’s crosshairs. There is a notion that in contrast to the tech firms, which need to be in the EU’s lucrative consumer market, the pharma firms don’t and could easily be manufacturing at home and are only here to avail of low taxes.
Any new data centres here will need to supply electricity to other premises under revised rules
State Pension: What to do if you are locked out by changes in the rules
Are the magnificent seven losing their shine in 2025?
If a 9% VAT rate is so important to viability of hospitality sector, why wait until next January to introduce it?
Last week, Trump said that as part of a future programme of trade measures, he would specifically target pharmaceutical imports with tariffs, a move designed to correct the Republic’s large trade surplus with the US.
If you thought Dublin’s special relationship with Washington would provide a safety net, think again.
The US’s political relationship with Europe is changing and so is the economic one.
How Brussels will respond to the looming tariff threat or what it could offer the US to soften Trump’s bullish stance on transatlantic trade remains to be seen. Trump remains in a shock and awe mode and it is hard to see where all of this lands.
Following an 18-month strategic review, the Industrial Development Agency (IDA) will on Wednesday outline its new five-year plan to promote inward investment against a very complicated global backdrop.
Are we at the beginning of Donald Trump’s global trade war?
Presumably much of the strategising in recent weeks has centred on how to respond to Trump’s trade policies.
IDA chief Micheal Lohan said part of the overall strategy would be a continuation but there would be a new focus on what he said were the four key drivers of global foreign direct investment growth: AI (Artificial Intelligence)/digitalisation; semiconductors; the green economy and healthcare.
The rapid jobs-rich growth of the past decade has slowed by how much will depend on Trump’s trade pivot.
