‘We need to hold our nerve’ amid Trump presidency, says Irish deputy premier
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Irish deputy premier Micheal Martin has said Ireland needs to “hold our nerve” and not overreact as Donald Trump becomes US president. Mr Martin was speaking after the US president-elect refused to rule out military action or economic coercion to seize control of Greenland or the Panama Canal trade route.
It has also been suggested that the incoming Trump administration could change its corporation tax system and/or impose tariffs in ways that could affect the Irish economy. “We need to just take it one step at a time. I don’t think we need to overreact in the initial days and weeks and months ahead. I think we need to hold our nerve,” Mr Martin said at the BT Young Scientist exhibition on Thursday.
Irish premier Simon Harris said that territorial sovereignty was something the EU takes “very seriously”. “Whether comments come from the east or the west, the importance of territorial independence (and) sovereignty is something very serious,” the Taoiseach said.
Mr Harris added that there has been an EU-US interdependence before Mr Trump’s election that still exists now. “President Trump was democratically elected by the people of the United States of America. He will be president of the United States of America for the next four years,” Mr Harris said.
“I wish him well as he prepares to take up office. I had a good conversation with him on the phone in recent weeks, and Ireland stands ready to engage constructively with the new US administration. “I would make this point that the US and the EU, I think, had interdependencies before the US presidential election. I think those interdependencies exist after the US presidential election.
