President Donald Trump during a bilateral talk dressed down Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin, on trade and tariffs, at the annual United States trip to mark Saint Patrick’s Day.
The US president said U.S does not have a deficit with Ireland, while answering the very first question he faced with Martin in the Oval Office, before going on to lambast the European Union in general.
Trump promised to respond to tariffs imposed by the EU in retaliation for new US levies on steel and aluminum, in an economic shockwave that could hit Ireland too.
The encounter with the Irish premier came less than two weeks when Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky got into a blazing row, also in the Oval Office.
According to reports, there was a light-hearted moment as Trump ribbed Vice President JD Vance about the green-and-white shamrock socks he wore to honor Martin’s trip, a tradition by the Irish leader ahead of Saint Patrick’s Day on March 17.
Despite the pleasantries during the visit, the 78-year-old president had a long list of grievances about the Emerald Isle, noting that he had great respect for Ireland but in the same breath accused it of luring pharma and tech giants to its shores with low taxes. The United States is Ireland’s single biggest export market for pharmaceutical drugs and ingredients, mostly manufactured by American companies like Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Johnson & Johnson.
