Ireland’s leader seeks to survive a brush with Trump (2025)

DUBLIN — In normal times, Ireland enjoys enviable access to the White House every year for St. Patrick’s Day. But these are anything but normal times — and this week’s invitation to the court of Donald Trump is being viewed with unprecedented fear and loathing in Dublin.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin, the prime minister due to meet the U.S. president on Wednesday as part of daylong events in Washington, is already in Texas seeking to defend and develop the U.S. corporate investment that fills the national coffers and anchors Ireland’s America-fueled economy.

Martin’s advisers have prepared a menu of positive talking points to deflect, pivot and redirect what could be a fight-picking Trump — a concern that turned to outright terror when they watched Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Feb. 28 visit unravel.

“It was quite extraordinary. Very, very unsettling,” Martin said on Ireland's flagship late-night talk show just hours after Zelenskyy was turfed out of the White House.

If Trump does want to take shots at Ireland when Martin becomes the first foreign leader to sit in the golden chair last occupied by Zelenskyy, he'll have plenty to aim at.

First, there’s Ukraine. The Irish agree with Zelenskyy that Ukraine needs American-backed security guarantees, not just a Russia-friendly cease-fire. Yet Ireland, an officially neutral state not even in NATO, is a poster child for a Europe that, in Trump's eyes, is unwilling to defend itself.

Ireland spends 0.2 percent of its economic output on defense, the lowest in the European Union. Its lack of military-grade radar and sonar, alongside a tiny navy with too few sailors and an air force with no jets, leaves Dublin effectively dependent on the U.S. and the United Kingdom for its defense — hardly a credible position from which to advocate stronger security policies elsewhere.

Then there’s the gulf over Gaza. Ireland is one of Europe's most strident critics of Israel's conduct in Palestine, and joined Spain and Norway last year in recognizing Palestinian statehood. It has also joined a South African legal action at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza — a move that spurred Israel to shutter its embassy in Dublin.

Back home, Martin is under opposition pressure to make good on a campaign promise to pass legislation banning imports from Israel’s occupied territories.

Don't 'take the bait'

But looming over everything is Trump’s America First agenda — and a stated determination to discourage U.S. firms from investing further in Ireland or the wider EU.

Multiple Irish lawmakers from both the government and opposition told POLITICO that Martin needs to be ready to face critical comments not only from Trump but also U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who last year declared: “It’s nonsense that Ireland of all places runs a trade surplus at our expense.”

The Irish government is hoping to defuse such criticisms with a mix of charm and gently delivered facts and figures suggesting that U.S.-Irish trade is weighted in America’s favor and represents a win for both countries.

They’re counting not only on the diplomatic savvy of Martin, a soft-spoken Corkman who has led the center-ground Fianna Fáil party for 14 years. Seven other Irish government ministers are traveling this week to the U.S. to meet political and business leaders in 15 states, including unusually red pitstops in Utah and Montana.

One of the few Irish government ministers staying behind in Dublin, Michael Healy-Rae, thinks Martin won’t “take the bait” if Trump, Bessent, Lutnick or any MAGA-friendly journalists in the room hurl one-sided criticisms or insults.

Healy-Rae predicted that Trump and Martin “will get on brilliantly. All this speculation that it could be a disaster — I think that’s nonsense.”

Healy-Rae thinks the strongest counter for Martin will be to point, politely, to the past praise of Republican think tanks for Ireland’s commitment to low corporate taxes and a simple tax code. With reluctance, the Irish last year raised their own longtime rate of 12.5 percent on corporate profits to 15 percent as part of its response to an OECD-driven process that has since been rejected by Trump.

The biggest sore point for Trump could be how virtually all of America’s top drugmakers have made Ireland a preferred base, with their main cluster in Martin’s own native Cork in southwest Ireland. While other U.S. firms principally locate in Ireland to secure barrier-free access to the EU single market, Big Pharma ships four-fifths of its Irish-made products and ingredients back to the U.S. market, accounting for the lion’s share of Ireland’s €72 billion in 2024 goods exports to America — more than triple the value of U.S. goods going to Ireland.

The Irish plan to counter, in part, by pointing out that trade is reaching unprecedented heights in both directions — and includes far bigger values in services, not goods.

Enterprise Ireland, the Irish state agency that promotes and supports home-grown companies, pushed that message Monday as Martin departed for Texas, listing a string of Irish businesses with big U.S. operations and investments, including Irish airline Ryanair, one of Boeing’s biggest customers. In the coming days their American hosts can expect to hear every Irish minister say, over and over, that Ireland is the world’s sixth-largest investor in U.S. businesses.

Meanwhile, the total trade balance, including both goods and services, heavily favors U.S. exports of services to Ireland. This produces a 2024 trade deficit for Ireland approaching €93 billion, according to Ireland’s statistics agency.

Irish officials privately concede that Trump is unlikely to be swayed by objective figures and facts, given his penchant for mangling them beyond recognition — but is much more likely to be won over with a headline-grabbing deal sweetened with flattery.

This is likely to mean a formal invitation to visit Ireland, particularly as guest of honor when Adare Manor in County Limerick hosts the 2027 Ryder Cup golf tournament. It could also mean plugging Trump’s own Irish golf resort, Doonbeg, in the neighboring county of Clare.

The Irish also could unveil an agreement in principle to import U.S. liquefied natural gas from fracking once Ireland builds its first LNG facility — a government decision taken only weeks ago in anticipation of the White House visit. Fracking is banned in Ireland, which has ambitious plans to develop offshore Atlantic wind farms but is failing to meet its climate action targets.

The Irish plan to pepper their Statewide tour with pre-scripted announcements of investments on both sides of the pond that they hope will attract, not irritate, Trump.

“We depend on free trade. Free trade has lifted the world … points I’ll be making in my conversation with President Trump,” Martin said in his Irish talk-show appearance, during which he offered his own take on the U.S. leader.

“He approaches politics different from your conventional politician. He is a business person first and foremost. He believes in deal-making and transactions,” Martin said.

Sinn Féin boycott

The opposition Sinn Féin party, which long valued White House interest in Ireland, is boycotting this year’s political festivities for the first time — and wants Martin to go into his meeting with all guns blazing on Gaza. Sinn Féin wraps itself in the Palestinian flag more than any other Irish party.

One of Ireland’s most left-wing lawmakers, Richard Boyd-Barrett, wants Martin to challenge Trump to his face, not try to butter him up.

“Donald Trump is a dangerous bully. He is threatening trade war. He’s threatening the ethnic cleansing of Gaza,” Boyd-Barrett said.

“We tell our children to challenge bullies and certainly not to plámás them,” he said, using an Irish word for heaping flattery on someone.

But Scott Lucas, a professor of international politics at University College Dublin, said Ireland doesn’t have the luxury of proclaiming its principles at a moment of real danger to its economic security.

Lucas said even arguing points of objective fact would prove unwise for Ireland versus the MAGAverse.

“When you’re going into this event of the year in U.S.-Irish relations,” he said, “you don’t want to be seen as being in a confrontational mode — even if what you’re saying is accurate.”