President Donald Trump claimed the European Union and Ireland are taking advantage of the US while sitting right next to the Taoiseach, and blamed America’s ‘stupid’ former leaders.
Trump complained about a ‘massive’ trade imbalance with Ireland and said the EU was ‘set up in order to take advantage of the United States’ during an Oval Office meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin.
Martin visited the White House on Wednesday hours after the EU announced tariffs on $28billion worth of US goods in response to Trump’s 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
Trump said the EU has ‘been very tough’ and ‘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’.
He added that the EU was ‘set up in order to take advantage of the United States’.
Asked if Ireland was also taking advantage, Trump replied, ‘Of course.’
He spoke with no restraint before Martin, who met with him as part of annual St Patrick’s Day engagements. It turned out to be heavier discussion than normally takes place around the commemorative day.
Trump grumbled that the ‘beautiful island of five million people has got the entire US pharmaceutical industry in its grasps’ after companies migrated there.
‘The Irish are smart, smart people and you took our pharmaceutical companies – and other companies – but you know, through taxation, proper taxation,’ said Trump.
‘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 bashed American presidents and others who were in leadership and ‘had no idea what they were doing’.
‘When the pharmaceutical companies started to go to Ireland, I would have said, “That’s OK. If you want to go to Ireland, I think it’s great. But if you want to go to Ireland, I think it’s great, but if you want to sell anything into the United States, I’m going to put a 200% tariff on you so you’re never going to be able to sell anything into the United States,”’ Trump continued.
He concluded that ‘the United States of America is going to take back a lot of what was stolen from it by other countries and by, frankly, incompetent US leadership’.
Checking Trump’s claim that the ‘entire US pharmaceutical industry’ moved to Ireland
Trump in his Oval Office meeting with Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin ranted that the ‘beautiful island of five million people has got the entire US pharmaceutical industry in its grasps’.
American pharmaceutical companies began relocating in the early 2000s to Ireland, where they benefitted from the European country’s low corporate tax rate. Companies that migrated included Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Boston Scientific.
However, some companies stayed in the US including Johnson & Johnson, which remains headquartered in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and has more than 130,000 employees across the world.
Martin said that the American pharmaceutical companies received educated and strong workers and that he is open to a deal.
‘By the way, have already announced fairly significant manufacturing investments now’ in the US, he said.
The US has a deficit with Ireland in the goods trade of nearly $87billion.
Trump said that if he drained Ireland of American companies that moved there, ‘maybe I’d get the Irish vote’.
He said he does not want to hurt Ireland but seeks fairness and that Martin ‘understands that’.
Martin sought to be more conciliatory, saying that ‘I think it’s a pretty good relationship we have’ and calling it a ‘two-way street’.
The Taoiseach was the first foreign leader to meet Trump in person since the US president’s fiery Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the end of February.
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