Although US President Donald Trump has stated that he does not wish “to do anything to hurt Ireland,” he has stressed that “fairness” should be the main emphasis of the two nations’ trading relationship, reports RTE.
During a bilateral discussion with Taoiseach Micheál Martin in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump made allegations against both the European Union and Ireland.
The “massive” trade deficit between the two nations was brought up by the president, who also said that Ireland is “of course” abusing the US, reports RTE.
He blasted the EU’s decision that Apple owes Ireland billions of euros in taxes and accused the government of “taking” US pharmaceutical firms through alluring taxing schemes.
“We have a huge deficit with Ireland and other countries as well, and we want to sort that out as nicely as we can, and we’ll work together,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, reports RTE.
“But the deficit is massive. Of course they are,” he responded when asked if Ireland was also abusing the United States, reports RTE.
“I have great respect for Ireland, for what they did and they should have done just what they did. But the United States shouldn’t have let that happen. We had stupid leaders, we had leaders who didn’t have a clue. All of a sudden Ireland has our pharmaceutical companies, this beautiful island of five million people has got the entire US pharmaceutical industry in its grasps,” reports RTE.
After declaring his admiration for Ireland and his significant Irish-American vote share, Mr. Trump said to reporters, “We don’t want to do anything to hurt Ireland, but we do want fairness and he understands that.”
He added that the “European Union treats us very badly” and that past presidents have “lost big segments” of the US economy.
“They sue our companies and win massive amounts of money. They sued Apple, won $17 billion and they use that for other reasons, I guess, to run the European Union,” Mr Trump said, reports RTE.
“I’m not knocking it. They’re doing what they should be doing, perhaps for the European Union, but it does create ill will – and as you know, we’re going to be doing reciprocal tariffs so whatever they charge us with, we’re charging them,” he added, reports RTE.
Referring to an EU court that ordered Apple to pay back taxes in Ireland, Mr. Trump claimed the business had been “treated very badly.”
“We fought with them” in reference to the EU lawsuit, Mr. Martin interrupted.
“It’s the European Union, isn’t it? The European Union is going after our companies,” Mr Trump said when asked if Apple should relocate from Dublin back to the US, reports RTE.
He said: “We have a problem in the European Union. They don’t take our farm products. They don’t take our cars. We take millions of cars, BMWs and Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagens and everything, we take millions of cars. I’m not happy with the European Union and we’re going to win that financial battle,” reports RTE.
‘Two-way street’
In an attempt to allay the president’s worries about the US-Ireland trade deficit, the Taoiseach also emphasised a “two-way street” of investment between the countries.
Mr. Martin mentioned Ryanair, stating that the airline is among the biggest purchasers of Boeing equipment and that Irish companies employ thousands of people in the United States.
“We’ve added value to America,” he said, reports RTE.
“I understand where you are coming from fully,” he added, reports RTE.
According to a Wall Street Journal report on the Taoiseach’s visit, Ireland has the fourth-largest trade surplus globally, after China, Mexico, and Vietnam.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Ireland has the largest trade surplus with the United States of any EU nation, totalling $85 billion (€78 million), reports RTE.
In other words, a nation with 5.4 million inhabitants has a larger surplus in goods trade with the US than Germany, one of the largest exporters in the world.
The same source also claims that Ireland’s trade surplus with the US is greater than that of Taiwan or Japan, reports RTE.
According to US trade data, pharmaceutical exports from US businesses with Irish headquarters increased by 42% to almost $50 billion last year, according to the WSJ study.
Mr. Trump’s efforts on “peace initiatives” for Gaza and Ukraine were commended by the Taoiseach.
The president replied that his anger stems from the fact that if he had been in government when the war in Ukraine started, it would never have occurred, reports RTE.
Mr. Trump said that he wanted to stop “2,000 people a week dying” even if the victims are neither Americans or Irish.
Mr Martin said: “The one thing we’ve learned in Ireland about the peace process that you’ve just spoken I recall back in the early 90s, when the first tentative steps to get peace in Ireland, people criticised people like John Hume, people like Albert Reynolds, the then taoiseach, and they kept going. The war in Ukraine is a devastating war on young people and I think that very simple straightforward narrative is to be commended. We all have children, we would be shocked at the prospect of young people losing their lives in that number, be they Ukrainian, be they Russian,” reports RTE.
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