Micheál Martin is a seasoned and polished politician who will no doubt be thoroughly prepared for his visit to the White House next Wednesday. And the vast majority of meetings which Donald Trump has held with international leaders in the Oval Office have passed off without incident. But this year’s St Patrick’s Day visit to Washington by the Taoiseach still comes with an added frisson of nervous expectation.
The reasons are obvious. From the outset, this administration has adopted more aggressive international policies than those pursued during Trump’s first term. Some of these, such as on the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, are diametrically opposed to the positions taken by Ireland over many years. Others, particularly on trade and tariffs, pose a direct threat to the Irish economic model.
It remains to be seen whether these subjects arise in the course of the meeting, although the Taoiseach has insisted that he will bring up Ukraine and Gaza.
As Tuesday’s call between US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Tánaiste Simon Harris illustrated, potential pitfalls abound. Harris subsequently contradicted the American account of that meeting, which reported that the trade deficit between the two countries had been discussed. The bluntness of his correction, although unusual, does not as yet appear to have elicited a backlash from Washington. That could still come next week.
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No matter how well prepared he is, the challenge for Martin may lie in Trump’s sheer volatility. Buoyed by his election victory and no longer constrained by the Republican party establishment, the president now has free rein to indulge his taste for improvisation and falsehoods.
The extraordinary scenes in the White House eight days ago, when Trump and vice-president JD Vance harangued Ukrainian president Volodmyr Zelenskiy, will not be repeated next week. That event bore all the hallmarks of a planned ambush as part of a broader repudiation of long-standing US alliances. The traditional presentation of shamrock is a soft-focus affair, designed to appeal to Irish-Americans, many of whom, as Trump correctly points out, voted for him last November.
It has been an unedifying spectacle to watch a string of international leaders pay homage to the new president, crafting their words carefully to feed his narcissism and egomania. History will judge whether those efforts were worthwhile or whether they merely added to the hubris of an administration wedded to a transactional foreign policy based on bullying and dominance.
Martin’s visit should be judged a success if he avoids confrontation, maintains an amicable relationship for the benefit of the cameras and emerges with his dignity and the country’s reputation intact.
