Everybody knows Trump doesn’t hold back, but even Ireland’s Prime Minister was caught off guard by how straight-up he was at their latest meeting.
Over the past few weeks, Trump’s met with quite a few big names, including UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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Micheál Martin recently paid the Oval Office a visit
Lately, it’s been European leader after European leader rolling through the White House, and on March 12, it was Micheál Martin’s turn in the Oval Office. He had his sit-down with Trump—basically the latest in a long line of visits.
The Taoiseach (a fancy way of saying “leader”) kept up tradition and gave Trump a bowl of shamrocks during the St. Patrick’s Day reception—a tradition Irish leaders have been doing with U.S. presidents since way back in 1953.
The two leaders quickly got down to business
Once the handshakes and photo ops were done, they jumped right into the real stuff—tariffs and trade, which, let’s be honest, wasn’t exactly going to be a chill convo.
Ireland’s been in the EU since ‘73
And, right now, the EU isn’t too happy. They just fired back at the U.S. with their own tariffs after America slapped duties on all steel and aluminum imports.
Trump says the US has been treated unfairly by the EU
He doubled down, “We have been abused for a long time, and we will be abused no longer,” he said, throwing in that the EU “treats [the US] very badly.”
Then he flat-out claimed, “The EU was set up in order to take advantage of the United States.” Safe to say, he wasn’t holding back.
The conversation took an awkward turn…
At this point, things were about to get even more uncomfortable.
Right after blasting the EU for “taking advantage” of the U.S., a reporter threw Trump a curveball: Did he think Ireland was guilty of the same thing?
Trump straight out accused Ireland of taking advantage of the US
The US president didn’t even think twice before saying, “Of course they are.”
Then, he threw a ‘compliment’: “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.”
Trump then expressed his frustration over pharmaceutical companies moving to Ireland
He added, “For instance, 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 sell anything into the United States, I’m going to put a 200 percent tariff on you so you’re never going to be able to sell anything into the United States.’”
When asked if the Taoiseach should be worried about tariffs, Trump didn’t hesitate
“We do have a massive deficit with Ireland. Because Ireland was very smart. They took our pharmaceutical companies away from presidents who didn’t know what they were doing.”
But of course, he had to throw in a backhanded compliment. “The Irish are smart. They’re smart people. We don’t want to do anything to hurt Ireland, but we do want fairness, and [Martin] understands that.”
But then Trump made sure to wrap things up on a friendlier note
He ended the talk saying he “loves the Irish” and that “we’re always going to have that special friendship.”
Then he went full patriotic, adding, “The bond between our nations is as old as our country itself.”
