US President Donald Trump has raised a "massive"
trade imbalance with Ireland and accused the European Union of treating the US
"very badly".
He made the comments during a bilateral meeting with
Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Micheál Martin as part of the Irish
government's traditional St Patrick's Day engagements.
Earlier on Wednesday, the European Union announced it
will impose counter tariffs on €26bn ($28bn) worth of US goods from next month.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said:
"There's a massive deficit that we have with Ireland... we want to sort of
even that out as nicely as we can, and we'll work together."
Martin told President Trump that foreign investment is a
two-way street, adding that Ireland is "investing a lot more in America
now".
The EU's move is in retaliation to President Trump's
25% tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports into the US, which came into
effect overnight.
Trump said it had caused "ill will".
"The European Union's been very tough, and it's our
turn too. We get a turn at that also," he said.
"I'm not knocking it, they are doing what they are
doing for the EU, but it does create ill will and you know we are going to do
reciprocal tariffs," he added.
'We don't want to do anything to hurt Ireland'
Official figures from Ireland's statistics agency suggest
the country had a goods-trade surplus with the US of just over €50bn (£41.6bn)
in 2024.
Ireland's goods exports to the US were €72.6bn (£60.4bn) in
2024 while its imports from the US were €22.5bn (£18.7bn).
Trump said that the EU was "set up in order to take
advantage of the United States".
When asked if Ireland was also taking advantage of the US,
Trump said: "Of course."
"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."
He added: "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.
"The Irish are smart, smart people and you took our
pharmaceutical companies - and other companies - but you know, through
taxation, proper taxation, they made it very, very good for companies to move
up there," he added.
Trump also said that if he drained Ireland of all the US
companies "maybe I'd lose the Irish vote".
"We don't want to do anything to hurt Ireland, but we
do want fairness and [Martin] understands that," he added.
However, Martin said the pharmaceutical companies "are
doing very well in Ireland", and that there was room to discuss a deal.
"I think there's room for those companies to grow in
America and many of them, by the way, have already announced fairly significant
manufacturing investments now [in the US]," the taoiseach added.
Martin said Ireland had served the US companies well with a
strong, educated workforce and access to the EU single market.
Housing answer stirs controversy
The president said Ireland's housing crisis was caused by
the country "doing so well".
Housing availability and cost is a major political and
social issue in Ireland, with reports stating thousands of new homes every
year are needed to keep up with demand.
"You know why they have a housing crisis? Because
they're doing so well, they can't produce houses fast enough," Trump said.
Martin added it was a "good answer".
However the remark has drawn criticism from opposition
parties, with Sinn Féin stating that joking about the housing crisis is
"never a good answer".
Trump also praised Northern Ireland golfer Rory McIlroy and
MMA fighter Conor McGregor during the visit.
He called McIlroy "talented", adding he had played
a round with him three weeks ago.
The president also complimented McGregor's tattoos:
"He's got the best tattoos I've ever seen".
Trump 'unaware' of boycott
Earlier, the US president said he was unaware that some
political parties were boycotting St Patrick's Day celebrations at the White
House.
Sinn Féin, the Social Democratic and Labour Party
(SDLP) and Alliance all ruled out attending events in Washington
over the Trump administration's stance on Gaza.
When asked about the boycotts, Trump replied: "I
haven't heard that, I really haven't heard that."
After the bilateral meeting, both Trump and Martin travelled
to Capitol Hill to attend the Friends of Ireland luncheon hosted by the US
House speaker, Mike Johnson.
Asked for his reaction to Trump being unaware some parties
had decided to boycott events, Martin said: "I'm not going to comment on
that.
"I note that there was a strong presence in Northern
Ireland at the lunch. I saw Hilary Benn there, the Northern Secretary of State.
Speaking at the event, Trump said the "Irish spirit is
truly alive and thriving in America".
The president met Deputy First Minister Emma
Little-Pengelly, Northern Ireland Assembly Speaker Edwin Poots and Communities
Minister Gordon Lyons.
O'Neill 'should have been here'
Speaking to OceanNewsUK Newsline after the meeting, Little-Pengelly
said she had a good conversation with the president about the US and NI's
"long-standing relationship" and his keenness to work together.
However, she added, Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle
O'Neill "should have been here".
"I'm sure Michelle O'Neill would say she doesn't think
that I should have been here but of course it's a joint office and I'm here
representing the Northern Ireland government," she said.
"I believe that it's incredibly important to show up,
turn up and speak up and that's the key thing that I will always do."
US 'steadfast friend' of Ireland
Prior to the meeting, Martin attended a breakfast hosted by
Vice-President JD Vance.
Speaking at the breakfast he said that the US "has been
a steadfast friend of Ireland for centuries".
He said the peace process was a "signature achievement
of US foreign policy", adding that Ireland is "ready to play our part
in supporting work to end conflict and to secure peace in the Ukraine or in the
Middle East or wherever".
Martin welcomed the "progress that has clearly been
made" as a result of the Trump administration's "unrelenting focus
and effort" to secure peace.
Vance described the US-Ireland relationship as "one of
the great alliances and great friendships between nations".
He added that Ireland is a country with "incredible
community… beautiful landscape and also a lot of interesting technological
growth".
"One of the more robust areas for us to work on with
our Irish friends in the years to come is going to be technology and
particularly artificial intelligence," he said.
The taoiseach was the first EU leader to return to the Oval
Office since the president's bust-up with Ukraine President Volodymyr
Zelensky.
The bilateral meeting came amid heightened concern over the
future of Ireland's economy, which is heavily reliant on US multinationals.
Trump sees this as a trade imbalance and is keen to entice
those companies back to the US.
However, Martin said he would use his visit to the Oval
Office to highlight an "increasingly two-way" trade and investment
relationship.
Speaking ahead of Martin's visit to the Oval Office,
Democrat member of the House of Representatives Brendan Boyle told OceanNewsUK The View that "what the Trump administration is doing with respect to
tariffs makes no economic sense, and it makes no sense in terms of our national
security".
Boyle said that imposing tariffs on Canada suggests that no
country is "safe fully from this sort of madness", including Ireland.
He added that Martin should "remind President Trump
that Ireland, despite its small size, is one of the largest investors in the
United States and one of the largest job creators in the United States".
"On the one hand, [Trump] likes to say, you know, we're
the best, he's the best, He's the greatest. Everything is a superlative.
"But then in the next breath, he says, we're suckers,
we're losers, we're being taken advantage of by every other country."
