Tánaiste Simon Harris has said the events of the past week should serve as a “wake up call” for Ireland and Europe to strengthen competitiveness and resilience.
His comments follow a week of uncertainty in the trading relationship between the US and the EU, which ended with US President Donald Trump withdrawing a threat to impose tariffs on European allies and the UK over his ambition to annex Greenland, after the US cited a favourable agreement with NATO, reports RTE.
Speaking at Government Buildings after a meeting of the Trade Forum, Mr Harris said a significant economic challenge had thankfully been avoided, but stressed that “we cannot go back to business as usual. It has to be a wake up call. It has to make us be more vigilant, it has to make us prepare better and in a more deep manner,” he said, reports RTE.
He said he had asked officials in the Department of Finance to speed up scenario planning, while also emphasising that Europe must act.
“We also need to see the European Union really accelerate actions to become more self-reliant. Self-reliant when it comes to security, but not just security in the defence sense, but also economic security, digital security and cybersecurity,” he added, reports RTE.
Mr Harris also said he agreed with comments made by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in a speech at Davos, in which he said the old world order had changed.
“The old international norms that we’d all been operating on for a generation and more is certainly tested at best. Therefore we have to prepare – control what we can control, do domestically what we can do, continue to run budget surpluses, invest in infrastructure, make sure this is a good country to invest in. And at a European level, push for us not just to be commentators on what happens in White House, but to actually take steps to make Europe more competitive and more resilient,” he said, reports RTE.
Taoiseach’s White House visit should go ahead, says McEntee
Meanwhile, the Minister for Foreign Affairs said she believes the Taoiseach’s St Patrick’s Day visit to the White House should proceed, describing the US as a key trading partner, reports RTE.
Helen McEntee said the Taoiseach’s visit was “an opportunity for access that many countries don’t have” and one that “our European colleagues value and want us to continue”.
Earlier this week, several Opposition parties called for a boycott of the traditional visit, reports RTE.
Minister of State Neale Richmond told the Dáil that nine or ten ministers will travel to as many as 15 US states around St Patrick’s Day.
Ms McEntee was speaking ahead of the Government Trade Forum, which she chaired, reports RTE.
The forum met for the tenth time since being established last year and discussed the action plan for market diversification and trade promotion.
Ms McEntee welcomed confirmation that Mr Trump would not proceed with higher tariffs on EU goods, but said these were “uncertain times”, reports RTE.
She said the EU’s response to the US threat over Greenland “was the right approach… to engage, to negotiate, to engage in constructive dialogue but to be firm in our beliefs and to be firm in pushing back”.
The minister said Ireland’s relationship with the US remains “one of our most important relationships” and that, after the EU, it is Ireland’s most important trading partner, reports RTE.
However, she said Ireland must diversify its markets and “control the controllables”, and that these issues would be discussed at the trade forum.
“We’ve developed a market diversification strategy, which was agreed by Government just last year, a new competitiveness strategy as well, and then of course, our trips on St Patrick’s Day will feed into that, and this is with the objective of looking beyond,” she said, reports RTE
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