Trump: I don’t want to hurt Ireland but trade must be fair

President Donald Trump has said he does not want “to do anything to hurt Ireland” but added that the trade relationship between the countries should be focused on “fairness”.

Mr Trump levelled accusations against Ireland and the European Union during a bilateral meeting with Irish premier Micheal Martin in the Oval Office on Wednesday.

The president raised the “massive” trade imbalance between the two countries and said Ireland is “of course” taking advantage of the US.

Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office: “There’s a massive deficit that we have with Ireland and with other countries too, and we want to sort of even that out as nicely as we can, and we’ll work together.”

He accused the Irish Government of “taking” US pharmaceutical companies through attractive taxation measures and criticised the EU’s ruling that found that Apple owes Ireland billions of euro in taxes.

He said: “The United States of America is going to take back a lot of what was stolen from it by other countries and, frankly, by incompetent US leadership.

He added: “I gave you an example of Ireland, I would have never let that happen but we’re going to take back our wealth and we’re take back a lot of the companies that left.”

Asked if Ireland was also taking advantage of the US, he said: “Of course they are. 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.

“All of a sudden Ireland has our pharmaceutical companies, this beautiful island of five million people has got the entire US pharmaceutical industry in its grasps.”

Mr Trump told reporters that he loved Ireland and had received a large share of the Irish-American vote before adding: “We don’t want to do anything to hurt Ireland but we do want fairness and he understands that.”

In a 50-minute session in front of reporters, Mr Trump heard from the Taoiseach that his father was a “very good defensive boxer”.

“He could duck and he could weave. He boxed for Ireland.”

In his own defence of the country, Mr Martin said that US pharmaceutical companies “are doing very well in Ireland”.

He said: “It’s about that two-way partnership. I understand fully where the president is coming from. I think there’s actually room that we can discuss all this.

“I think there’s room for those companies to grow in America and many of them, by the way, have already announced fairly significant manufacturing investments now (in the US).”

On US companies operating in the country, Mr Martin said “Ireland has served them well” with a strong, educated workforce and access to the EU single market.

While Mr Trump said he was “not going to mess around” with Mr Martin given his fighting genetics, he added that Apple had been “treated very badly” by an EU court ruling that order the company to pay billions of euro in back taxes to Ireland.

Mr Martin interjected to say that the Irish Government “fought with them” on the EU case.

“It’s the European Union, isn’t it? The European Union is going after our companies,” Mr Trump said when asked if Apple should relocate from Dublin back to the US.

He added: “I’m not happy with the European Union and we’re going to win that financial battle.”

He said previous presidents had “lost big segments” of the US economy, adding that the “European Union treats us very badly”.

“They have not been fair. They sue our companies and win massive amounts of money. They sued Apple, won 17 billion US dollars and they use that for other reasons, I guess, to run the European Union.

“So I’m not knocking it. They’re doing what they should be doing, perhaps for the European Union, but it does create ill will – and as you know, we’re going to be doing reciprocal tariffs so whatever they charge us with, we’re charging them. Nobody can complain about that.”

Mr Trump greeted Mr Martin outside the West Wing and the pair shook hands, ahead of their sit-down engagement in the Oval Office.

The Taoiseach highlighted a “two-way street” of investment between the nations in a bid to address the concerns around the US-Ireland trade imbalance raised by the president.

Mr Martin also praised Mr Trump’s work on “peace initiatives” for Ukraine and Gaza.

Ahead of the meeting, there was heightened concern around Mr Trump’s protectionist approach to tariffs and tax could pose a significant risk to an Irish economy that is in large part sustained by long-standing investment by US multinationals.

Mr Trump will later be presented with a bowl of shamrock as the centrepiece of the Irish Government’s major overseas diplomatic push in the run-up to St Patrick’s Day on March 17.

Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Martin also attended a breakfast meeting at the US vice-president’s official residence.

Mr Martin and his wife Mary were greeted by Vice-President JD Vance and his wife Usha at the US Naval Observatory.