Perhaps the Irish card does still count for something in Washington. Taoiseach Micheál Martin escaped from the Oval Office after a rather chaotic session dominated by media questions and a US president in full flow. Martin handled it about as well as he could have, underlining the value to the US of the economic relationship with Ireland and giving the administration credit for its efforts to bring peace to Ukraine.
The Taoiseach struggled to get a word in early on as Donald Trump answered a range of questions from the press, as part of which he repeated his view that the EU had taken advantage of the US over the years. Later, Martin managed to intervene on a number of occasions, getting in his key economic talking points and avoided drawing any hostility from his hosts.
Given the seriousness of the housing crisis, Martin may regret laughing at Trump’s comments that it was a “good problem” for Ireland to have – as it reflected economic growth. Later, the Taoiseach spoke about how housing was his number one policy priority.
The meeting pointed clearly to other challenges ahead. The US president made a point of underlining the significant trade deficit the US has with Ireland , saying he wants to address this in a “nice way” and without hurting this country.
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The reality is, of course, that Ireland may well be damaged economically by what is to come. Trump was resolute that he wanted to impose significant additional tariffs on the EU and said that next month would see big moves here. This could make the tariffs on steel and aluminium, imposed yesterday – and the EU’s planned response– a sign of worse to come.
There are, however, several weeks before the EU tariffs are due to kick in -–and more general US tariffs are due – and there is time for negotiation in the meantime. Ireland will be one of the EU member states encouraging this to happen, but the signs are that a bumpy period lies ahead in EU/US relations.
Referring specifically to Ireland, the president underlined his determination to attract American pharmaceutical investment located here back to the US, a threat to Irish jobs and tax revenue. Martin appeared to suggest there might be a negotiated way forward here – what this might be is not clear.
Ireland is too small a country to be a particular target for Trump. But the presence of big US companies here producing for the American market is clearly a bugbear for him and – despite his fondness for Ireland – it is clear that this carries dangers for this State. So does the real risk of a full-blown trade war as Trump pursues his deeply mistaken tariffs agenda.
A huge job of economic diplomacy lies ahead for Ireland in Washington and Brussels.
