Donald Trump: Ireland ‘ready to work with us to bring peace

Ireland is ready to work with the United States to bring “fair, permanent and sustainable peace” to Ukraine and the Middle East, said Taoisach (Irish Prime Minister).

The comments come when Micheál Martin presented the US President Donald Trump a bowl of Shamrocks in the White House as part of the celebrations for St. Patrick’s Day.

This is followed by a bilateral meeting between the two guides, in which the president raised a “massive” commodity weight with Ireland and accused the European Union of “very bad” treating the USA.

Earlier on Wednesday the EU announced that it has a drop in € 28 billion ($ 28 billion) worth US.

At the Shamrock presentation ceremony on Wednesday evening, Martin referred to US intervention in the problems in Northern Ireland and the role in creating the Good Friday Treaty.

“The history of peace in Ireland is one that we wrote together,” said Taoisach.

“We know that building peace is a difficult and careful task, but if the mighty United States put its shoulder on the bike, there is no mountain that it cannot move.”

Martin also praised Trump’s “relentless focus and energy” to bring peace and the Middle East to peace.

“In my opinion, there is nothing more noble than striving for peace, and that’s what you do,” he added.

Before that, President Trump said in comments that he “loves the Irish”.

“We will always have this special friendship,” he said. “The bond between our nations is as old as our country itself.”

When Trump spoke to reporters in the Oval Office earlier, he addressed the “massive deficit” with Ireland.

“We want to get it out of any way as much as possible and we will work together.”

Martin said President Trump that foreign investments were a two-way street and adds that Ireland “now invests much more in America”.

The EU’s move is in retribution 25% of the 25% tariffs for all steel and aluminum imports to the USAWhich came into force overnight.

Trump said it caused “sick will”.

“The European Union was very hard and it is also our turn. We also have a turn,” he said.

“I don’t knock, they do what they do for the EU, but it creates illnesses and you know that we will make mutual tariffs,” he added.

Official figures from the Ireland’s statistics authority indicate that in 2024 the country had a trading trade of a surplus with the United States of just over € 50 billion.

The Irish exports in the USA amounted to € 72.6 billion (60.4 billion GBP) in 2024, while its imports from the USA were € 22.5 billion (18.7 billion GBP).

Trump said that the EU was “set up to take advantage of the United States”.

When asked whether Ireland also took advantage of the USA, Trump said: “Of course.”

“I have great respect for Ireland for what they did and they should have done exactly what they did. But the United States shouldn’t have allowed it. We had stupid guides, we had guides who had no idea.”

He added: “Suddenly Ireland has our pharmaceutical companies, this beautiful island with five million people has the entire US pharmaceutical industry.

“The Irish are intelligent, smart people and they have taken over our pharmaceutical companies – and other companies – but they know that they have made it very, very well for companies to pull up there,” he added.

Trump also said if he “might lose Irish vote”.

“We don’t want to do anything to hurt Ireland, but we want fairness and (Martin) understands that,” he added.

However, Martin said that the pharmaceutical companies “perform very well in Ireland” and there was space to discuss a deal.

“I think there is room for these companies to grow in America, and many of them have already announced quite significant manufacturing investments (in the USA),” added the Taoiseach.

Martin said Ireland served the US company well with a strong, trained workforce and access to the EU internal market.

The President said that the real estate crisis of Ireland was “so well” caused by the country.

The availability and costs for apartments in Ireland are a big political and social problem with reports Specify thousands of new houses every year are needed to keep up with the demand.

“You know why you have a real estate crisis? Because you are doing so well, you can’t produce houses quickly enough,” said Trump.

Martin added that it was a “good answer”.

However, the remark was criticized by opposition parties, with Sinn Féin explained that joking about the real estate crisis is “never a good answer”.

During the visit, Trump also praised Northern Ireland Golfer Rory McIlroy and MMA Fighter Conor McGregor.

He called Mcilroy “talented” and added that he played a round with him three weeks ago.

The president also congratulated McGregor’s tattoos: “He has the best tattoos I have ever seen”.

After the bilateral meeting, both Trump and Martin traveled to Capitol Hill to visit Friends of Ireland’s lunche, which was organized by the UShouse spokesman Mike Johnson.

Martin spoke before lunch and said Trump was a “great friend of Ireland” and “we hope to bring her back to our little island … very soon”.

The United States has been a “place of greeting and opportunity for the Irish for centuries,” added the Taoiseach.

“The green of our nation was threaded by almost 32 million Irish Americans by the united states of the tapestry.”

Trump also said at the event and said that the “Irish Spirit was really alive in America and thrives”.

Before the meeting, Martin took part in a breakfast organized by Vice President JD Vance.

When he spoke at breakfast, he said that the United States “has been an unshakable friend of Ireland for centuries”.

He said the peace process was a “signature performance of the US foreign policy” and added that Ireland “was ready to support our role in supporting work to end conflicts and to secure peace in Ukraine or in the Middle East or wherever”. “

Martin welcomed the “progress that were made clear” as a result of the “relentless focus and effort” by the Trump government to secure peace.

Vance described the relationship between the USA and Ireland as “one of the great alliances and great friendships between the 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, where we can work with our Irish friends in the coming years, is the technology and especially artificial intelligence,” he said.

The Taoiseach was the first EU leader to return to the Oval Office since then The President of the President with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The bilateral meeting was in the middle of an increased concern about the future of the Irish economy, which depends heavily on US multinational companies.

Trump sees this as a retail weight and wants to trace these companies to the USA.

However, Martin said that he would use his visit to the Oval Office to emphasize an “increasingly two guidelines” trade and investment relationships.

Before visiting Martin in the Oval Office, the Democrat of the House of Representatives Brendan Boyle told BBC News Nis the view that “the Trump government does not make an economic sense in terms of tariffs and that it makes no sense in relation to our national security”.

Boyle said that the imposed tariffs on Canada indicate that no country is “in full before this kind of madness”, including Ireland.

He added that Martin “President Trump should remind you that Ireland is one of the largest investors in the United States and one of the largest workers in the United States despite its small size”.

“On the one hand (Trump) likes to say, you know, we are the best, it is the best, he is the biggest. Everything is a superlative.

“But then in the next breath, he says, we are vacuum cleaners, we are losers, we are used by any other country.”