‘We need to hold our nerve’ amid Trump presidency, says Micheál Martin

By Gráinne Ní Aodha and Cillian Sherlock, PA

Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said Ireland needs to “hold our nerve” and not overreact as Donald Trump becomes US president.

Mr Martin was speaking after the US president-elect refused to rule out military action or economic coercion to seize control of Greenland or the Panama Canal trade route.

It has also been suggested that the incoming Trump istration could change its corporation tax system and/or impose tariffs in ways that could affect the Irish economy.

“We need to just take it one step at a time. I don’t think we need to overreact in the initial days and weeks and months ahead. I think we need to hold our nerve,” Mr Martin said at the BT Young Scientist exhibition on Thursday.

Taoiseach Simon Harris said that territorial sovereignty was something the EU takes “very seriously”.

“Whether comments come from the east or the west, the importance of territorial independence (and) sovereignty is something very serious,” the Taoiseach said.

Mr Harris added that there has been an EU-US interdependence before Mr Trump’s election that still exists now.

“President Trump was democratically elected by the people of the United States of America. He will be president of the United States of America for the next four years,” Mr Harris said.

“I wish him well as he prepares to take up office. I had a good conversation with him on the phone in recent weeks, and Ireland stands ready to engage constructively with the new US istration.

“I would make this point that the US and the EU, I think, had interdependencies before the US presidential election. I think those interdependencies exist after the US presidential election.

“And what we must do now at an EU level and at an Irish level is find ways of engaging.”

Ireland has recorded billions of euro in surpluses each year due to windfall corporation tax receipts.

Economists have warned that these funds are volatile as they come from a very small number of large, foreign-owned multinationals – mostly with US connections – and a global shock or shift could see Ireland’s tax incomes exposed.

A budgetary watchdog’s analysis showed that just three corporate groups ed for between 30 per cent and 38 per cent of all corporate tax receipts in Ireland between 2017 and 2021.

Mr Martin said that foreign direct investment into Ireland is “a 50-year story” at least and that Ireland still offered a good base for companies to export into European, Middle Eastern and African markets.

“It’s been a very successful, sustained achievement by Ireland to have attracted world-class companies, and part of the reason for that is they do well in Ireland,” Mr Martin said.

He said there is a reliable workforce, compliance reliability and access to the European market in Ireland.

“They find Ireland very reliable, the workforce in Ireland very reliable, in respect of things like FDA compliance reliability in of supply to market.

“The Irish location for many biopharma technology companies has been very helpful to them in of their access to the EMEA market.

“So Ireland has made a very significant contribution to American companies in of, once they’re located, they’ve grown, but Ireland has added value.

“In addition to that, Irish companies employ about 100,000 people in America. So world economies are interdependent. All the big powers realise that ultimately.”

He said Ireland would work with the European Union in relation to trade with the US and other issues.