merrion street

The President of the United States of America Donald J. Trump accompanied by the First Lady Melania Trump paid a visit to Ireland at the invitation of an Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar. 

A bilateral meeting between the Taoiseach and President Trump took place at Shannon Airport in Co Clare on Wednesday, 5th of June. 

Speaking after the meeting an Taoiseach, 

The United States is one of the most important and powerful countries in the world, economically and politically, and I think it’s important that we should have a good relationship with The United States and it’s part of my job as Taoiseach to have a good relationship with the President of The United States.

We talked about a number of issues – Brexit of course being one of those.  He was very keen to tell me about what he heard in England and his assessment was that we’d have to wait to see who the next British Prime Minister is before we can see what happens next.  He’s in favour of Brexit, as you know and we’re not, but he understands that a major issue is the border between North and South and he shares our objective to keep the border open, as it is now, respecting the Good Friday Agreement.  Also talked a little bit about immigration and our on-going campaign to secure E3 visas, so that more Irish people can go to work in America, and he’s being very supportive on that.  And also talked about tax and trade, acknowledging that we’ve a low corporation tax rate and that’s going to stay the same. 

Ireland is in the top ten when it comes to investors into The United States and also there’s nearly 100,000 Americans now working for Irish owned firms in The United States.  So, it’s another opportunity to point out that the economic relationship is now very much a mutually beneficial and a two-way, a two-way exchange.