Détente with the Don
The results of the visit by Taoiseach Micheál Martin to the White House was the best outcome the establishment could hope for, following months of anticipation.
Shortly after the western Romans were defeated at the battle of Chalons in 451AD, Attila the Hun marched on Rome, who like the Visigothic king Alaric before him, had the aim not only to loot and plunder what once was the heart of the empire, but also to humiliate it. According to contemporary and later discussions, the direct intervention of Pope Leo I persuaded the nomadic horde to cease their incursion and head back north. While making plans to strike the eastern capital Constantinople, Attila suddenly died, the exact circumstances of which are still debated.
If you were to read the subtext of todays Irish newspapers, you’d be led to believe a similar scenario played out, with the Corkman charming the orange ogre back from a futile spat that would rival Zelenskyy’s disastrous press conference with the US president a few weeks ago. In reality it ended up being what it has always intended to be: a fairly benign diplomatic meeting between the American and Irish heads of state aimed to maintain, celebrate and “the bonds of friendship” amidst the nations. It even came with cringe worthy recollections of Leo Varadkar and Justin Trudeau engaging in “sock diplomacy” in the new form of US vice President JD Vance putting on according to journalist Eoin Lenihan a “minstrel show and did a silly sock pantomime to endear one of the most ardent globalist politicians in the world to his MAGA base.” That is what this trip has always been, a heat test of the current relations between Dublin and D.C, no matter if Obama or Trump that bowel of shamrocks.
While some will be disappointed that the new administration did not give the Irish Taoiseach a good dressing down, I came away with a different conclusion. Looking at the body language of Martin while Trump made a passing joke about the Irish housing crisis, he was totally out of his depth. Despite his speeches and clapback’s regarding Irish contributions to American aviation corporations such as Boeing or pharmaceuticals, he was constantly shifting his arms, crossing his legs and leaning towards the president, unconsciously looking for his approval and stressing about the implications of said joke from the opposition when he returns home. I may be completely wrong and behind closed doors, he was loggerheads with Vance in a cage match over freedom of speech or immigration.
The class prefect never tries to please the teacher in silence or anonymity, because that would be a waste of time and energy. The act has to be public and extravagant, so that there is no doubt about who is a loyal satrap. You don’t merely support the United States, you conform and mutate oneself to suit the situation. Martin is at his core like most Irish politicians a chameleon, who’s ideological conformities change with the wind, akin to the feudal tech lords like Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk. To play a delicate balancing act of puffing your chest, shelling out empty platitudes and millions of our taxes towards worthy causes in Gaza and Ukraine, even if our contributions just up assisting enriching oligarchs in Kiev or terrorists in Gaza.
Opposition parties such as Sinn Fein, the Alliance and Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), made public remarks before the invitation was sent out that no member of each respective party would attend any festivities in D.C. Most of which cited recent comments made by the US president related to the possible future resettlement of Palestinians in neighboring counties such as Egypt and Jordan, as well as the transfer of control of the Gaza strip from Israel to the United States. The Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald however, was undeterred to visit the American capital last year despite Biden’s support of Israel, the IDF’s operations against Hamas militants and the the growing number of civilian deaths and injuries in Gaza. Unsurprisingly, when asked by reporters if he was aware of the boycott, he replied “‘I really haven’t heard about this.’ For all their humanitarian bluster, the Irish on the grand geopolitical scale are very low according to Washington.
What seemed to have grabbed the American’s attention was not immigration woes, freedom of speech but in fact energy and security concerns in Irish waters, in particular Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminals and Data center policies and its impact on US MNC’s. According to the Sunday Business Post, the Irish state now aims to buy out a €300 million LNG terminal as a strategic emergency reserve, at a yearly cost of €60 million. The following day, the same outlet reported that the Department of Environment announced the prior government's ban on imported fracked gas would be lifted after reviewing Ireland's energy security needs. This was on the cards even more so following Russian incursions of its naval and air assets into Irish territorial waters in the last number of years, in 2021 and 2024 respectfully. Not to forget this poses a great threat to the telecommunications cables, 75% of which in the north Atlantic run through or near Irish waters.
The main topic on display was really the €50 billion trade imbalance between the two states, of which Martin deferred to EU authorities when it came to negotiations and Irelands commitment to the flourishment of Irish and American trade relations on the matter. The incoming tariffs will hem in mostly on pharmaceutical exports, despite Trump admitting he was impressed by Irish trickery, framing it as a testament to Ireland’s shrewdness rather than a point of contention. “The Irish are smart, smart people, and you took our pharmaceutical companies”.
For any MAGA supporters perusing this, they should be happy that Trump is not as crass, rude, insane or vitriolic as the talking heads on Prime Time, The Examiner or Newstalk present him to be. The lessons is that you pick and choose your battles carefully, as not all are worth fighting, especially in front of a media circus, as Zelenskyy found out the hard way wasn’t a sound strategy at all. The best that people like Martin can hope for is act as inoffensive and bland as possible to escape being caught between the EU and American tariffs and ending the war in Ukraine, acting as the reasonable middleman. With the recent comments and actions related to the Gaza conflict testing the will and patience of potential EU allies, its too close to call to see if Ireland comes out squeaky clean. However, this honeymoon period won’t last forever and any black swan event that catches the eyre of Trumps allies may indeed change all that for the worse.