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Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin heads to the White House next week to mark St Patrick’s Day, hoping to escape with only “a couple of kicks” from Donald Trump over his country’s huge trade surplus with the US.
Martin is set to become the first head of state or government to visit the Oval Office since Trump’s bust-up with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
His visit on March 12, five days before St Patrick’s Day itself, comes as the EU scrambles to boost defence spending to protect Ukraine after Trump cut off defence co-operation to the nation and as the bloc, which the president said last month was “formed to screw the United States”, braces for the prospect of trade tariffs.
Ireland has deep cultural and business links with the US dating back to mass emigration during its 19th century famine. Trump on Thursday signed a proclamation declaring March Irish-American Heritage Month.
He praised Irish-Americans as “great people — and they voted for me in heavy numbers, so I like them even more”.
The proclamation referenced Trump’s plans to “correct trade imbalances with the European Union” saying “our historic relationship with Ireland presents an opportunity to advance fairer trade policies”.
On that front, Ireland is hugely exposed. Exports of goods to the US rose 34 per cent to €72.6bn last year, compared with 2023, while imports of goods were €22.5bn, a 2 per cent fall on the previous year.
US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick has blasted Ireland for running “a trade surplus at our expense”.
Earlier this week, the US readout of a call between secretary of state Marco Rubio and Irish foreign minister Simon Harris said the pair discussed “the US priority to address the US-Ireland trade imbalance” — something Harris said was not mentioned directly.
The US, however, exports €163bn in services to Ireland, meaning Dublin has an overall trade deficit of €93bn with the US.
Martin will stress that Ireland is the sixth largest investor in the US, with the top 10 Irish companies in America employing 115,000 people.
But “a couple of kicks” on trade in front of the cameras in the Oval Office were “inevitable,” said one senior government official.
“I can’t see how we’d escape that. It’s the way Trump does business — flattery, kick, flattery, kick,” the official said.
Ireland is home to major US tech and pharma companies, whose record corporation taxes have fuelled eye-popping surpluses — expected to hit some €24bn this year, boosted by back taxes from Apple that the European Court of Justice ordered Ireland to accept.
Trump wants US companies to relocate home and has not ruled out tax incentives to encourage them — a policy that would hit Ireland hard. But Glenn Boehnlein, vice-president and CFO at US medical devices manufacturer Stryker, which has plants in Ireland, said that was not so simple.
“You can’t turn anything on a dime — you really aren’t going to pick up manufacturing and move it instantaneously,” he told an EY CFO summit in Dublin this week held in partnership with the Financial Times.
“The best-case scenario [for the St Patrick’s Day event] is all shamrocks and leprechauns,” said Ben Tonra, professor of international relations at University College Dublin.
He hoped Martin would then “get to say the things he needs to say about Ukraine and Palestine” in private “and get out of that room as fast as possible”.
Militarily-neutral Ireland has pledged its unwavering support for Ukraine and says it will “not be found wanting” on future peacekeeping. But Ireland has upset US ally Israel by recognising Palestine’s statehood.
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