US President Donald Trump said that Ireland is “of course” taking advantage of the United States during this afternoon’s bilateral meeting with Taoiseach Micheál Martin, who highlighted a “two-way street” of investment between the two countries.
They were speaking in the Oval Office as part of the traditional St Patrick’s Day visit.
Mr Trump raised what he described as a “massive” trade imbalance between the two countries.
“There’s a massive deficit that we have with Ireland and with other countries too, and we want to sort of even that out as nicely as we can, and we’ll work together. But the deficit is massive.”
We need your consent to load this comcast-player contentWe use comcast-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage PreferencesMr President Trump also said that: “The EU was set up in order to take advantage of the United States.
Asked if Ireland was also taking advantage of the US, he said: “Of course they are. 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.”
Responding to his comments about the Irish economy, Mr Martin said that it was “a two-way street”.
The Taoiseach referenced Ryanair saying the airline is one of the largest buyers of Boeing equipment and that thousands of jobs in the US are in Irish firms. “We’ve added value to America,” he added.
“I understand where you are coming from fully,” Mr Martin said.
Mr Trump said the US “didn’t want to do anything to hurt Ireland” but added that they do “want fairness”.
Earlier, the Taoiseach was greeted by the president outside the White House, where the pair shook hands.
The meeting comes amid heightened concern that Mr Trump’s protectionist approach to tariffs and tax could pose a significant risk to an Irish economy that is in large part sustained by long-standing investment by US multinational.
An article on the visit of the Taoiseach in today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal says Ireland has the fourth biggest trade surplus of any country in the world – after China, Mexico and Vietnam.
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Ireland is the EU country with the biggest trade surplus with the US at $85 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.
That means a country with a population of 5.4 million people has a bigger goods trade surplus with the US than Germany, one of the world’s biggest exporters.
Ireland also has a bigger trade surplus than Taiwan or Japan has with the US, according to the same source.
The WSJ report says pharmaceutical exports by US companies based in Ireland surged by 42% last year to some $50 billion, according to US trade data.
Mr Trump said it was a “great honour” to have Mr Martin at the Oval Office.
“We have tremendous business relationships in Ireland, and that will only get stronger.
Donald Trump will be presented with a bowl of shamrock by the Taoiseach
“The relationship we have, personally in every other way is very, very strong and very, very good. So, I just want to welcome you to Washington DC and to our country and thank you very much.”
Mr Trump also said Apple had been “treated very badly”, referring to an EU court ordering the company to pay back taxes in Ireland.
Mr Martin interjected to say “we fought with them” on the EU case.
“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.
“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.”
The Taoiseach praised Mr Trump’s work on “peace initiatives”.
In response, he said that what makes him angry is that the war in Ukraine would have never happened if he had been US president when it broke out.
Mr Trump said although the people dying are not from Ireland or the US, he wants to stop “2,000 people a week dying”.
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.”
Mr Martin thanked the president for his hospitality and said it was a “great honour” to be in Washington DC to celebrate St Patrick’s Day.
“I commend you on the work that your doing, particularly when it comes to peace.”
Mr Trump said that “we’re working hard with Israel to see if we can solve the problem” after being asked about a proposed Irish bill to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements.
He was asked about the Occupied Territories Bill during the meeting.
President Trump said that hostages taken in Gaza were “treated badly” and that October 7 “was a terrible thing”.
“October 7 was a terrible day. It’s amazing the way people don’t mention it but I’ve never seen anything like it.”
He added: “We’re working hard with Israel, we’re working hard to see if we can solve the problem.”
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Martin welcomes Ukraine, US ceasefire negotiations
Mr Martin was the first EU leader to meet Mr Trump following the proposals for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine and the lifting of the US suspension of military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
The Taoiseach had said that any peace in the region had to be “fair and sustainable”.
After the Oval Office meeting, Mr Martin travelled to the US Capitol building for the Friends of Ireland luncheon hosted by House Speaker Mike Johnson before returning to the White House for the traditional shamrock ceremony.
Asked if he would be inviting Mr Trump to visit Ireland or giving him an additional gift on top of the shamrock bowl, Mr Martin told reporters: “The president is always welcome to visit Ireland and obviously we’ll be engaging on that front.”
Additional reporting PA
