The US president Donald Trump has at last issued a formal invitation to Taoiseach Micheál Martin to travel to Washington for the traditional St Patrick’s Day engagements. An important and delicate question is how Martin should approach those discussions.
The Taoiseach is right to accept Trump’s invitation. In an increasingly threatening world, the EU member states and their closest friends, including the United Kingdom, are in agreement that part of their multifaceted approach to the new US government must be to try to engage with it. Yes, they must stand resolutely by their values even as evidence mounts that Trump’s values are different. Yes, they must prepare urgently to act independently of the US to the extent that that becomes necessary. Yes, they must be ready to retaliate as appropriate, including to the imposition of tariffs.
However, Ireland and its partners must continue to engage with Trump in order to defend its interests insofar as the disconcerting developments in Washington will allow. There is still quite a lot to play for. The different messages and emphases sometimes emerging from the Trump team, and from Trump himself, leave scope for others to exercise some influence on the direction of US thinking. Some Republican members of Congress, even if they have so far been largely timid, disagree profoundly with Trump’s alignment with the Russian president Vladimir Putin and may be gradually developing some backbone behind the scenes. Trump’s own unpredictability can work both ways. He lunges in outrageous directions but can then change approach or appear to lose interest, including on Panama, Greenland and Canada.
Even Sinn Féin, in announcing that the party would not be present in Washington on St Patrick’s Day, sensibly acknowledged that the Taoiseach should accept an invitation if it were received. Not to attend would damage Irish influence and interests as well as having implications for future such visits.
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The Netanyahu government badmouths Ireland, particularly in the US, and would no doubt be delighted were Ireland to decline its annual place in the Washington limelight.
Clearly there are two contrasting approaches that Martin should avoid. On the one hand, he should not back down on the values that are important to the Irish people and to Europe, nor water down Ireland’s principled approach to key international issues, most notably on Ukraine and Palestine.
On the other hand, it would be politically foolish and substantively counterproductive to go all guns blazing into his meeting with Trump to confront and challenge him, as some domestic political opponents will be urging him to do.
Martin is an experienced and emotionally intelligent politician. He understands that there is a broad pathway for engagement to be found between the Scylla of surrender and the Charybdis of pointless overreach.
[ Europe’s leaders lined up to sway Trump on Ukraine - but did it work?Opens in new window ]
French president Emmanuel Macron, during his recent visit to Washington, demonstrated superbly how to manage his erratic and egocentric host. At their joint press conference, he recognised the over-riding importance of praising Trump and stroking his outsize ego. At the same time, under the smokescreen of that flattery, he confidently reasserted Europe’s position on several issues, including contradicting Trump on Russia’s responsibility for the Ukraine war. He praised Trump’s general commitment to peace in Ukraine while emphasising Europe’s quite different view of what that will necessarily require. He seemed to make progress in establishing a warmish personal relationship with his American counterpart.
The UK prime minister Keir Starmer, who liaised closely with Macron in advance of his own visit to Washington, in this way demonstrating that the Johnson/Truss nonsense has been consigned to history, skilfully deployed a similar approach, including reasserting, in Trump’s presence, the UK’s support for a two-state solution in the Middle East.
For his part, Trump – in part presumably influenced by his European visitors – changed his rhetoric significantly in some respects, including on Ukraine.
As EU member states, Ireland and France have significantly overlapping interests. Like Macron, Micheál Martin will be representing Europe as a whole in Washington as well as our own country specifically. It will be a timely opportunity, for example, to reiterate Europe’s view that a tariff war would damage everyone.
However, Ireland is a smaller country than France and has a different historic relationship with the US. Martin will not use Macron’s approach as a detailed template. He will seek to strike something of the same balance between cajolery and the courteous expression of basic truths. An invitation to Trump to visit Ireland would be sensible, and could contribute to deepening the personal relationship that seems to be important for any foreign leader trying to work with the US president.
Self-evidently, the Taoiseach will not be able to persuade Trump to accept Ireland’s views on Ukraine or Palestine. However, he can and will remind Trump gently that there are other views on such issues than those that he hears from many of his courtiers. That in itself, backing up other visitors to Washington, should be of some service to Europe and some benefit to Ireland.
It has been suggested that any attempt to engage constructively with Trump is a form of appeasement, with echoes of the run-up to the second World War. The only appeasement to be seen at the moment is from those who are happy to award Russia’s aggression by conceding to all of its demands. Trying to influence Trump by all available diplomatic means is just sensible statecraft.
