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OAN Staff Blake Wolf
1:24 PM – Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin met with President Donald Trump on Wednesday for an annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration, leading Trump to discuss the “massive” trade imbalance between the two nations.
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Martin is an Irish Fianna Fáil politician serving as Taoiseach since January 2025, having previously held the position from 2020 to 2022.
Throughout the meeting in the Oval Office, President Trump pointed out the “massive [trade] deficit that we have with Ireland,” while adding that he intends to work together with Irish leaders to “even that out as nicely as we can.”
The meeting followed after the European Union announced that it would enact $28 billion in counter tariffs on U.S. goods, beginning next month — which is in response to President Trump’s 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
“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,” Trump stated. “The European Union’s been very tough, and it’s our turn too. We get a turn at that also.”
Trump also spoke on the Irish goods-trade surplus with the United States, amounting to around $44 billion in 2024.
President Trump had responded to a question of whether or not Ireland is taking advantage of the United States.
“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 stated.
Additionally, Trump also spoke on the rapid growth of U.S. pharmaceutical companies operating within Ireland.
“All of a sudden Ireland has our pharmaceutical companies, this beautiful island of five million people has got the entire U.S. pharmaceutical industry in its grasp,” he continued. “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.”
“We don’t want to do anything to hurt Ireland, but we do want fairness and [Martin] understands this.”
Meanwhile, Martin expressed that foreign investment works both ways, and Ireland is “investing a lot more in America now.”
“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,” he stated.
Prior to the meeting with President Trump, Martin attended a breakfast hosted by Vice President JD Vance, where he stated that the U.S. “has been a steadfast friend of Ireland for centuries.”
Martin continued, praising Ireland’s relationship with the U.S. and declaring that the country 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.”
During the breakfast, Vance characterized the U.S.-Ireland relationship as “one of the great alliances and great friendships between nations.”
“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,” Vance stated.
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