Donald Trump’s second presidential term has been a turbulent one internationally. He has toppled the Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, and acquired control over that country’s oil resources; subjected friend and foe alike to punishing tariffs; and launched what now looks like a forever war against Iran. He also had a seismic public row with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy, threatened to seize Greenland from Denmark and is currently involved in an angry spat with Canada.
In comparison to those ructions, Ireland has done quite well. Our economic model was targeted early on by commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and there has been some negative commentary in the United States’ right-leaning media, but hardly a peep from the president. US investment in Ireland continues to flourish and our exports actually surged last year in anticipation of the impact of tariffs. Our many policy differences with the Trump administration have not led to any serious breach between us. The passage of legislation banning trade with the Occupied Territories has not elicited any sharp reaction from Washington. There was understandable apprehension around the Taoiseach’s 2025 St Patrick’s Day visit, but JD Vance’s green socks set a clubbable tone for the day.
Next week’s visit will be the 13th overseas trip of the current Trump term. Most were made to fulfil international engagements – the Pope’s funeral, Nato and G7 summits. Ireland will be among a small handful of countries to receive a bilateral visit.
During those visits, different coping strategies have been deployed for managing the president. Nato’s Mark Rutte called him “Daddy”. Qatar gifted him a jumbo jet. Chancellor Merz presented him with his German-born grandfather’s birth certificate. Keir Starmer flattered him with an invitation from king Charles to pay an unprecedented second state visit, and Britain subsequently pocketed the trade deal it coveted. Although Taoiseach Micheál Martin no doubt had a quiet word last March about Trump coming to Ireland for the Irish Open, this will be a far cry from a formal state visit.
Nor will it be a sentimental homecoming à la Joe Biden in 2023. Nonetheless, Trump does have a fondness for Ireland. He remembers being well-received when he acquired the Doonbeg Golf Club in 2014. Enda Kenny used his own enthusiasm for golf to break the ice with Trump in 2017 while Micheál Martin dropped in at Doonbeg last year in advance of his first meeting with Trump, who is inordinately proud of his Irish property.
Doonbeg has turned out to be a diplomatic asset for us. In 2019, Trump spent two nights in Co Clare, flitting back and forth from there to Britain and France for D-Day commemorations. He will derive real satisfaction from seeing his course being tested by some of the best golfers in the world. Fans attending the Irish Open will probably be respectful to this golf-obsessed visitor.
But a Trump visit is clearly no picnic. The attempts on his life mean that the security around him will necessarily be off the scale. Controversy follows him wherever he goes, much of it of his own making. He is now more embattled than at any time since he returned to the Oval Office, which has darkened his mood.
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Anti-Trump protests are inevitable. Any media encounters he has will be fraught, as Irish journalists will be eager to pose the kind of questions he will not relish. The fact that Ireland currently holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union adds a complicating factor at a time of strained EU-US relations. Do we include European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president António Costa and turn it into an EU-US affair? Or play it safe and keep it bilateral, which would be my preference?
The Dublin leg of the visit may well be confined to the Phoenix Park with stops at the American Embassy and Farmleigh to meet the Taoiseach. The visit to the Áras could be tricky, but I expect President Catherine Connolly to be savvy enough to know that there is no value in having unpleasant exchanges with her counterpart in what will, after all, be a brief “courtesy” call. Trump can be quite affable in private. He professes to get on well with such unlikely figures as North Korea’s infamous Kim Jong-un and socialist New York mayor Zohran Mamdani. He likes to like his counterparts and likes them to appear to like him.
Those who might want Trump to be put to rights on key issues will likely be disappointed. Comparisons with the approaches taken by Canada’s Mark Carney – who recently walked away from trade talks – and Spain’s Pedro Sánchez – who has a famously combative relationship with Trump – are misplaced. Those are far bigger countries with more strings to their bow. Besides, Canada is almost certainly beavering away behind the scenes to smooth things out with its southern neighbour before the economic cost of their recent falling out spirals.
By now it should be abundantly clear that Trump is not for turning on a lot of things. Most countries aspire to a quiet life with him, hoping to sit out these years with their interests intact. EU members of Nato want to keep the alliance together and were thus willing to accept a suboptimal EU-US trade deal rather than risk the rough and tumble of an unbridled tariff war.
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That said, Trump does listen and is easier to manage one-to-one than his public persona might suggest. There will be an opportunity for our side to encourage him to push forward with a political process for Palestine and to raise our concerns about the behaviour of Israeli settlers on the West Bank. There will be scope to highlight the extent of our solidarity with Ukraine, including by giving refuge to 100,000 Ukrainians, which pro rata would be the equivalent of welcoming 6 million or so to the United States. The Taoiseach will surely take the opportunity to hammer home the benefit the US derives from the success of its companies in Ireland and from the employment created by the many Irish companies investing in United States.
There will be general relief if Trump leaves Co Clare with the impression that “the Irish people really like me”. In the grand scheme of guarding Ireland’s interests in a troubled world, the truth, whatever it may be, probably doesn’t matter all that much. An even par round will be a respectable result in such blustery conditions.
Daniel Mulhall is a former Irish ambassador to the United States (2017-2022)