Michael Brendan Dougherty: While Trump has refocused America on questions of hard power, Ireland still has the ability to charm
The invitation came late, and the date early, but the most surprising thing was that so many observers had braced themselves for the annual shamrock exchange between the Taoiseach and the US president to become acrimonious. European media, which has been loaded with anti-JD Vance essays since his provocative Munich speech and chippy exchange with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, got a glimpse of the vice-president’s softer side. There was no Oval Office ambush, and the tradition survives another year even under a president who breaks traditions freely.
When you examine president Trump’s jaw-jawing from the event, he was expressing America’s position vis-a-vis Ireland at a bilateral level, and then occasionally widening to the European context.
At the bilateral level, Trump expressed his frustration about America’s trade deficit with Ireland as anger at his predecessors, but admiration for the “smart” Irish people. New US secretary of commerce Howard Lutnick has expressed rage more directly at Irish tax rates. Ireland got through this meeting just fine – the US is focused more on Ukraine, Mexico and Canada currently. But it would be wise to prepare a more comprehensive defence of Ireland’s tax system, or perhaps a plan to grow Irish domestic firms to the point where the country relies less on naked policy arbitrage. Vance’s suggestion of partnership in AI technology may be a fruitful starting point.
Ireland’s position on Israel and Gaza did not become a source of controversy because, frankly, from the US perspective, Ireland is the extreme example of European desire to make moral comment, without making serious moral commitment in terms of global security. This issue also likely divides Ireland from the Irish-diaspora in America, who have tended to view Jews as immigrant-peers, fellow religious minorities sharing the same cities and competing in many of the same industries. Long-assimilated Irish Americans are more likely to take the word of their Jewish neighbours on the moral dimensions of the conflict.
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It’s easy to focus on Trump’s style of provocation. He ignores the US State Department’s role in encouraging the development of the EU, saying it was founded only to “screw” the US. But the substance of his noisomely-expressed views on Europe had been articulated as quiet and friendly suggestions by Barack Obama and secretary of defence Robert Gates a decade ago.
[ Ireland still faces threats from the Trump presidencyOpens in new window ]
The US is desperate to rebalance its defence and trading relationships. Among 195 states in the world, the US has 50 formal treaty alliances, and dozens of less formal security partnerships. Dwight Eisenhower worried in the 1950s that Europe was close to “making a sucker out of Uncle Sam” by relying on the US for security. Since 1960, the US has averaged 36 per cent of allied GDP, but more than 60 per cent of allied defence spending. The US had a 60 per cent share of world GDP in 1960. It now sits at roughly 26 per cent of world GDP. US commitments grow, while the relative share of resources to meet them has shrunk.
The Trump administration is full of a new generation of foreign policy thinkers, like Elbridge Colby, who believe the US must hand responsibility to Europe for Europe, and exit the Middle East, so that it may focus on deterring war in the Pacific.
But while Trump has refocused America on questions of hard power, Ireland still has the ability to charm. Trump seemed genuinely astounded that nearly 50 per cent of American Medal of Honor recipients are of Irish stock. He values the Irish-American vote. “We don’t want to do anything to hurt Ireland,” he said. There is a real chance that four years from now the Trump administration will leave, and will have taken nothing from the ongoing US relationship with Ireland but fond memories and a few questionable scorecards from Doonbeg.
Michael Brendan Dougherty is a writer for National Review and the author of My Father Left Me Ireland
Daniel Geary: Diplomatic realities aside, we should still feel disgusted by how Martin sat in silence
The Taoiseach’s annual St Patrick’s visit to the White House was successful in that he did not anger Donald Trump. Yet it demonstrated that Ireland’s relationship with the United States has fundamentally changed. The US president is no longer Ireland’s friend. A friendship allows the airing of disagreements without fear of repercussions, as when Leo Varadkar criticised unconditional US support for Israel or when Garret FitzGerald objected to US human rights abuses in Central America. But this week Micheál Martin silenced disagreements with Trump out of fear that it would provoke economic retribution.
To be sure, Martin did what he needed to do. It may be tempting to stand up to a bully, but we saw how badly wrong that went for VolodymyrZelenskiy. But even while recognising the diplomatic reality, we should still feel disgusted by it.
In order to stop Trump from punishing Ireland’s economy, Martin had to swallow objections to a man with profoundly different values, an authoritarian who has spread hatred and lies throughout the world. He had to listen quietly while Trump demeaned trans people and migrants. Even as Ireland has joined an international case against Israeli genocide, Martin praised the “peace” initiatives of a man who advocates the ethnic cleansing of Gaza to build high-rise apartments.
He had to flatter a man whose Irish allies are among the far right which spreads conspiracy theories and provokes violence against migrants. Trump said the Irish man he most admires is Conor McGregor, who has spewed racist hatred and was found in a civil case to have assaulted and raped Nikita Hand, a finding he is now appealing. McGregor and the minority of those who agree with him are Trump’s real friends in Ireland.
While this marks a new moment in US-Irish relations, it is hardly a departure from how most countries have dealt with the world’s foremost superpower. Ask any Latin American. Throughout its history, the US has bullied its neighbours, forced upon them trade deals detrimental to their economies, and overthrown governments that defied it.
Ireland has enjoyed a privileged relationship with the US based on shared culture and history of immigration. At one time, as when the shamrock ceremony was introduced in 1953, Irish-American voters constituted a recognisable bloc that could be cultivated by American politicians. But most of all, this special relationship relied on the fact that we are a European country. In the US, the Irish became white – and US foreign policy has long been undergirded by white supremacy. With the post-second world War Marshall Plan, the US rebuilt European economies so they would be trade partners and allies. Meanwhile, it subjected much of the rest of the world to neocolonial resource extraction.
But Trump is dramatically shifting US policy toward Europe. The meaning of his America First policy is to subject European nations to the same kind of bullying that the US once spared its most favoured allies. Because this is a fundamental shift in US policy, it would be foolish to believe that the old US-Irish relationship would be restored by any other Republican president. Indeed, a president JD Vance would be more difficult to flatter no matter if he now dons shamrock socks.
If we want to avoid future rituals of humiliation with deplorable US presidents, we have to shift our economy from its overdependence on US multinationals. As Fintan O’Toole proposes, we could take advantage of the brain drain from Trump’s assault on American science to enhance our universities and develop our own high-tech companies.
Yet there is little evidence that our Government is engaged in any such long-term strategic thinking. In the future the shamrock ceremony is likely to resemble nothing so much as a holiday dinner with an abusive relative. You avoid conflict at any cost and leave with a revolting feeling in your gut.
Daniel Geary is Mark Pigott professor in US History at Trinity College Dublin
