The Taoiseach Micheal Martin’s White House encounter with Donald Trump was controversial even before it was announced. Before any invitation had been extended, Sinn Fein said they were going to boycott the event in a show of solidarity with the people of Ukraine and Gaza and as a sign of their commitment ‘to humanity’. The People Before Profit party said Martin was endorsing America’s role in a genocide and Labour leader Ivana Bacik insisted the Taoiseach take the opportunity to publicly scold Trump on Ukraine, Gaza and his perceived failures to take action on climate change.
But Martin is a more experienced politician than that and knew there was only one real matter at hand: Ireland’s increasingly vulnerable economic reliance on American firms and Trump’s threats to impose swingeing tariffs if these firms didn’t return to the US.
The morning started well with a breakfast with J.D. Vance. The Vice President – who waxed lyrical about a previous holiday in Ireland, talked about his Irish friends and wore a pair of much mocked ‘shamrock socks’ – allayed some Irish fears.
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