Former US vice presidential candidate and Minnesota governor Tim Walz has been left “explaining what the hell is happening in America” to Irish politicians, he told a trade conference on Monday.
The governor, who was the running mate of US Presidential candidate Kamala Harris in the 2024 election that Donald Trump won, said the US is going through an “interesting time”. He said “in Minnesota, when we use the term ‘interesting’ that has a lot of meanings”.
Governor Walz told US and Irish medical and sports technology companies that global economic ties are “still incredibly strong” at a sports and medical technology event at the Guinness Enterprise Centre in Dublin. He said that trade delegations “are now more important than ever”.
“My concern is the defence of western democracies ... which is critical to all of us,” he said.
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“What you are finding in America right now – more than ever – through our federal system, is that we are a group of 50 states,” governor Walz added. He urged Irish companies to see Minnesota as a state that “values global connection”.
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He said that, in his home state, trade deals are not viewed as something to “gain the upper hand in” but instead to be mutually beneficial.
He said that Minnesota “has a lot of similarities to Ireland” in terms of population size (5.8 million) and its entrepreneurial status and noted the state government’s goal was to “help create economic growth here in Ireland” as well as attracting Irish companies to invest there.
Niamh Collins, the director of the Guinness Enterprise Centre (GEC), told The Irish Times that Irish start-ups were now looking to different markets for their exports.
“Until Trump, the US was the main market for a lot of the companies in the GEC,” she said, noting that its size and shared language meant it was “always the market of choice”.
She said US tariffs have had an impact on some of the businesses based in the GEC, which have had to look to other markets due to fears that it could become “too expensive to export to the US”.
Most of the businesses based at the GEC are technology-related, however, and have retained their focus on the US market.
Ms Collins said there were “comments and jokes made by every [US] delegation” which come to Ireland that “they don’t know on a day-to-day basis what Trump is going to say or do.”
Governor Walz attended the NFL match on Croke Park on Sunday to support his team, the Minnesota Vikings, who lost narrowly to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
He was joined at the trade conference by NFL chief medical officer Dr Allen Sills, the medical director of the Professional Tennis Players Association, Dr Robby Sikka, and the chief operating officer of the Vikings, Andrew Miller.
Mr Miller said the league was seeking to grow its profile overseas and that the team has seen the interest in the team globally grow significantly in recent years.
The NFL coming to Dublin, he said, had given them a chance to meet “vibrant” Irish companies in the sports and medical technology field, which he said was “critically important”.
