US President Donald Trump has raised a “massive” trade imbalance with Ireland and accused the European Union of treating the US “very badly….Read More

He made the comments during a bilateral meeting with Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Micheál Martin as part of the Irish government’s traditional St Patrick’s Day engagements.

Earlier on Wednesday, the European Union announced it will impose counter tariffs on €26bn ($28bn) worth of US goods from next month.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said: “There’s a massive deficit that we have with Ireland… we want to sort of even that out as nicely as we can, and we’ll work together.”

Martin told President Trump that foreign investment is a two-way street, adding that Ireland is “investing a lot more in America now”.

The EU’s move is in retaliation to President Trump’s 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports into the US, which came into effect overnight.

Trump said it had caused “ill will”.

“The European Union’s been very tough, and it’s our turn too. We get a turn at that also,” he said.

“I’m not knocking it, they are doing what they are doing for the EU, but it does create ill will and you know we are going to do reciprocal tariffs,” he added.

Official figures from Ireland’s statistics agency suggest the country had a goods-trade surplus with the US of just over €50bn (£41.6bn) in 2024.

Ireland’s goods exports to the US were €72.6bn (£60.4bn) in 2024 while its imports from the US were €22.5bn (£18.7bn).

Trump said that the EU was “set up in order to take advantage of the United States”.

When asked if Ireland was also taking advantage of the US, Trump said: “Of course.”

“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.”

He added: “All of a sudden Ireland has our pharmaceutical companies, this beautiful island of five million people has got the entire US pharmaceutical industry in its grasps.

“The Irish are smart, smart people and you took our pharmaceutical companies – and other companies – but you know, through taxation, proper taxation, they made it very, very good for companies to move up there,” he added.

Trump also said that if he drained Ireland of all the US companies “maybe I’d lose the Irish vote”.

“We don’t want to do anything to hurt Ireland, but we do want fairness and [Martin] understands that,” he added.

However, Martin said the pharmaceutical companies “are doing very well in Ireland”, and that there was room to discuss a deal.

I think there’s room for those companies to grow in America and many of them, by the way, have already announced fairly significant manufacturing investments now [in the US],” the taoiseach added.

Martin said Ireland had served the US companies well with a strong, educated workforce and access to the EU single market.

Trump ‘unaware’ of boycott
Earlier, the US president said he was unaware that some political parties were boycotting St Patrick’s Day celebrations at the White House.

Sinn Féin, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and Alliance all ruled out attending events in Washington over the Trump administration’s stance on Gaza.

When asked about the boycotts, Trump replied: “I haven’t heard that, I really haven’t heard that.”

After the bilateral meeting, both Trump and Martin travelled to Capitol Hill to attend the Friends of Ireland luncheon hosted by the US House speaker, Mike Johnson.

There, the president met Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly, Northern Ireland Assembly Speaker Edwin Poots and Communities Minister Gordon Lyons.

Speaking at the event, Trump said the US had “truly been blessed by the courage and unstoppable spirit of the Irish”.

“The Irish spirit is truly alive and thriving in America, and as we see today, the friendship between our nations is strong and it’s really unbreakable,” he added.

“And that includes all of you. You know, it’s all of you. We love you all.”