In the News

Ireland will play an “elevated role” in Europe in negotiating trade deals with Donald Trump, a leading US congressman has said.

The ancestral and economic connections between the two countries will be critical when it comes to having sway over the incoming administration, claims Richard Neal, the Democratic representative for Massachusetts.

Neal told The Sunday Times that he did not foresee Trump wanting to damage the relationship with Ireland.

“President Biden took a very assertive view to the Irish-American relationship; I don’t think President Trump will necessarily take a different view. There are thousands of people working for US companies in Ireland and it remains the gateway to Europe for the US,” he said.

“The economic relationship is profound and Donald Trump’s history is in New York city, so he will have an understanding of the strong emotional attachment that Irish-Americans feel for the old country. You couldn’t grow up in New York or Boston or Springfield or Chicago and not have an understanding of those very relevant feelings.”

Neal, a co-chair of the congressional friends of Ireland caucus, said he recently had a meeting with several US corporations operating in Ireland that boasted about how pleased they were with their operations there. They expressed a desire to continue business as usual.

He added: “Ireland’s elevated role in Europe can’t be dismissed.”

The St Patrick’s Day meeting between Trump and the taoiseach in Washington DC will have heightened importance, and Ireland intends to heavily leverage the access it provides to the new administration.

It will be pressed upon Trump that there is a strong mutually beneficial trading and investment relationship, and Ireland’s role in Europe will be emphasised as it is set to hold the EU council presidency in 2026.

Simon Harris, the taoiseach, told The Sunday Times he intended to engage with the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) and foreign-direct investment companies and outlined plans to ramp up diplomatic efforts in the US and Brussels.

“We need to be proactively engaging with the American system at a federal level, but also at a state level,” he said. “I think ‘team Ireland’ will really be putting its shoulder to the wheel. We’re not starting from a blank sheet of paper. We have good, deep relationships with people on a bipartisan basis in Congress. We know President Trump and President Trump knows Ireland, and he thinks fondly of Ireland.”

Paul Sweetman, chief executive of AmCham, said his organisation was looking forward to working with the Trump administration.

While there is a level of unpredictability about what Trump will do, Ireland has to be “agile” and “focused” on what can be controlled while managing the relationship positively, said Fergal O’Brien, executive director of lobbying and influence with Ibec. “When you have policy uncertainty those events in the States around St Patrick’s Day matter more than when the world is more stable,” he said.

“They get you in the room and you can’t discount the importance of that.”

Ireland had become complacent, given its economic success, and was facing a more “challenging” environment, he said.

“We need to work on the things we can control, like the competitiveness agenda, capacity of business and energy policy. Foreign direct investment had been slowing before the US election because we don’t have housing, we don’t have the enabling infrastructure; these are things we can focus on.”