Washington — Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he hopes dialogue can resolve the trade war between the U.S. and the European Union after President Trump Thursday threatened to impose 200% retaliatory tariffs on European wines and alcohols.
The tariffs were a response to the European Union’s counter-tariffs against Mr. Trump’s initial steel and aluminum hikes.
“I think it’s a lot of uncertainty at the moment,” Martin said in an interview with CBS News on Thursday. “Overall, tariffs are damaging to trade, damaging to businesses, but also damaging to consumers, because they will lead to an increase in prices for consumers. I don’t think that’s good, either way. So, we would hope that in the fullness of time that these things will settle down and that there would be negotiation, trade negotiations, to arrive at a landing zone that people can cope with and can accommodate.”
Martin said that Mr. Trump was “very conscious of the goods surplus that Ireland has, particularly through the pharmaceutical issue.”
“But if you put services into the mix, of course Ireland is in deficit,” he said.
Martin described the U.S. and Ireland’s economic relationship as a “two-way street” and touted his country’s investment in the U.S., including over 700 Irish companies that he said were responsible for the creation of more than 50,000 jobs in the U.S. Martin also highlighted that Irish airline, Ryanair, had recently placed an order for over 400 Boeing aircraft.
When added with another Irish company AerCap’s purchase of 150 Boeing aircraft last year, Irish-owned companies were “the largest purchaser of Boeing aircraft outside the United States,” he said.
“In an absolute worst-case scenario, say, a 25% increase across the board on tariffs, a tit-for-tat from both sides — a Boeing 787, the price will go up by $40 million,” AerCap’s CEO Aengus Kelly said Wednesday on CNBC. “No one’s going to want to pay that.”
Kelly said European companies would likely buy aircraft manufactured by Airbus, which is a European company, if Mr. Trump’s tariffs are applied.
Asked about his meetings with the president Wednesday at the White House, Martin described them as “positive meetings” that celebrated the “historic ties between the two countries.” He called Mr. Trump a “gracious host” who has an “affection for Ireland.”
“He likes Ireland. He has an investment in Ireland,” he said, adding that Mr. Trump, a New Yorker, showed that he had a “a lot of experience with the Irish-Americans.”
Fin Gómez
Fin Gómez is the political director for CBS News. Fin oversees the day-to-day political coverage for CBS News. He has covered five presidential political cycles and multiple presidential campaigns. He was formerly a member of the CBS White House unit.
