Fallon's Town Talk: Martin boxes clever but time will deliver verdict on White House visit

Micheál Martin’s visit to the White House was a throwback to the time when League of Ireland clubs played in the old European Cup and would meet a continental powerhouse. A draw or even a narrow defeat against the champions of Italy, Germany or Spain was hailed as a terrific result.

It was the same when the Taoiseach entered the bear-pit of the White House press corps in the presence of US President Donald Trump and his acolytes.

The general consensus is that Martin did as well as he could – much like the League of Ireland standard-bearers in the past - and emerged relatively unscathed. This is despite Trump, while professing his love of Ireland, fulminating about American tech firms in Ireland.

Even if those companies decide to stay here, the current US administration wants the firms to repatriate their profits to the US, which would slash our corporation tax profits.

It is a sign about how expectations had been transformed in the build-up to the annual St. Patrick’s Day jamboree in Washington. If any previous US president had spoken so bluntly, we would have gone into meltdown. Everything is different in the era of Trump, when diplomatic meetings with heads of the state have been turned into reality TV set-pieces.

From the Far Left claiming a few months ago that Martin shouldn’t even go to the White House to then demanding he confront Trump about his attitude to Gaza, everything changed following Trump and Vice-President JD Vance’s verbal mauling of Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky. In the last few weeks, Martin’s trip became, simultaneously, the most anticipated and dreaded in history.

To those who have criticised Martin for not being more forceful on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the response is: what would have been achieved if the Taoiseach had criticised the US government? It wouldn’t have made a jot of difference to Trump’s attitude towards Palestine or Ukraine while drawing the ire of The Donald upon this country.

If anything, Martin’s handling of questions about Gaza were among the more impressive parts of the press conference. He tried to combat the way Ireland has been depicted by Netanyahu while still getting his point across that the Irish people favour a two-state solution in Gaza.

Martin had less success when meeting Jewish representatives later in his trip with some groups opting out altogether. Irish diplomats will have to be on the top of their game to counteract any Israeli government attempts to portray Ireland negatively in the US corridors of power. Fellow EU leaders might be annoyed Martin let Trump get away with too much, but, ultimately, he boxed cleverly. Indeed, the Taoiseach’s wry quip about his father being a good defensive boxer was one of the funnier moments of the press conference.

It will probably take a while for a final verdict to emerge on how Martin did. Enda Kenny’s oft-referenced speech in 2017 about St. Patrick being an immigrant in front of a president notorious for his anti-immigration policies only garnered praise at home after the US media lauded Kenny.

Nevertheless, from the moment Vance showed off his shamrock-pattern socks, it was clear that the traditional US goodwill towards Ireland is intact. While it is claimed that the oversized Irish influence in the US, spearheaded by the late John Hume and which probably reached its zenith in the Clinton era, is fading, it was notable that Trump and Vance decided to be cordial towards Martin.

For context, Donald Tusk, the high-profile prime minister of Poland and former leading EU figure, was left waiting outside the Oval Office by Trump and eventually got a measly 10-minute meeting.

Last week’s flurry of ministers visiting the US was the first serious indication that the Irish government is pivoting away from our traditional partiality towards the Democrats and trying to build bridges with the Republicans. Sensibly, Martin made sure to call into the Republican governor of Texas when visiting that state.

As Trump gloated, albeit in his typically exaggerated way, the Irish-American vote – or perhaps more accurately, the Irish component of the White Catholic vote - has shifted away from the Democrats to the Republicans.

Of course, Trump’s flattery doesn’t butter any parsnips, and Irish butter exports to the US will suffer if he follows through on his threat of an extraordinary 200% tariff on EU goods. The president may have professed his love of Ireland last Wednesday, but just one day later he announced the extortionate tariffs that could decimate Irish whiskey and butter exports to the US. That’s Trump in a nutshell.