Taoiseach to pledge €5.2 billion in US investment at Trump meeting
James Cox
Taoiseach Micheál Martin is reportedly set to outline a planned investment of €5.2 billion ($6.1 billion) during his White House meeting with US president Donald Trump on St Patrick's Day.
Martin will discuss the plans with Trump in the Oval Office, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
According to the report, the investments will include $5 billion over five years from paper-based packaging company Smurfit Westrock, $1 billion from Kingspan, and $100 million from nutrition company Glanbia.
Enterprise Ireland chief executive officer Jenny Melia said "we are now at record levels of investment” in the US.
Irish companies are also set to announce plans to ramp up support to Amazon and other US data centre operators.
CEL Critical Power, which specialises in data centre power solutions, plans to expand an Amazon data centre opened last year in Williamsburg, Virginia, that would double the number of employees to 500 by 2030, according to Enterprise Ireland.
“World leaders used to come to the White House and walk away with billions in taxpayer-funded freebies,” said White House spokesman Kush Desai. “Now they’re bringing trade and investment deals—because they know President Trump means business, and that America under his leadership is the hottest country in the world.”
Tensions ahead of White House meeting
There were huge tensions ahead of Martin's White House visit last year as Trump was poised to announce his sweeping programme of tariffs.
Martin was forced to sit by as Trump criticised the European Union and US foreign direct investment in Ireland, with most of it dominated by American pharmaceutical and technology companies.
Trump said Ireland was “a beautiful country of five million people [which] has got the entire US pharmaceutical industry in its grips".
When asked if he believed Ireland was taking advantage of the United States, he replied: "Of course they are.”
Martin alluded to Irish investment in the US during the meeting, but had no concrete plans for additional spending.
There are huge worries within Government about this year's meeting amid the Iran war, the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, and the unrest in the US over ICE's conduct.
However, the planned investments may provide a lifeline for Martin to avoid an awkward encounter with the world watching on.
He will likely opt for a non-confronational approach as German chancellor Friedrich Merz did in a recent meeting with Trump. This is in contrast to Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez who has vocally criticised the US war on Iran, prompting ire from Trump over Spanish refusal for US military to use their air bases.
Martin met Sanchez during the week.
President's intervention
Opposition leaders including Labour's Ivana Bacik and Holly Cairns of the Social Democrats have challenged Martin to stand up to Trump.
The reported investment announcements will also be welcomed by the Taoiseach after President Catherine Connolly criticised the US over its strikes on Iran.
She condemned the “violations of international law” in the Gulf. She said they were “shocking and numbing”, adding, “but we cannot afford inaction”.
Martin has not responded but a Government spokesperson reiterated that only the Coalition is responsible for the State's foreign policy.
