Gavan Reilly in Washington: The best case scenario is a no score draw in the Trump v Taoiseach meeting

This week’s column comes from row 23 of an Aer Lingus flight to Dulles, where your correspondent is on his way to Washington for the Taoiseach’s annual trip to the White House.

My muscle memory wanted to type the word ‘jamboree’ there, but this year’s visit is not in the slightest bit jovial. Where the usual visit might feel a bit run-of-the-mill, cordial and somewhat banal, there’s a tangibly different feel this year.

For the first time in a long time, a Taoiseach is on his way to the White House and will have to play defence.

There hasn’t been a foreign visitor to the White House since Volodmymr Zelenskyy last Friday week; Micheál Martin is the next man to sit in the same chair the Ukrainian president was in when he got his public scolding from Donald Trump. That encounter may turn out to be the most consequential moment in geopolitics since 9/11; there is now a visible appetite on the part of Europe to detach itself from America’s bosom and to be able to secure itself – from threats real or imaginary – without needing transatlantic help.

That in itself creates a few problems for the travelling Taoiseach. There is now an iciness to the EU-American relationship that wasn’t there even a month ago. It is vital to Ireland’s national interests that the country remain integrated with both; nobody wants to countenance the idea of Ireland become culturally fractured from the EU in order to preserve its economic ties to American investment.

The best case scenario for Micheál Martin, therefore, would be to go over and convince Donald Trump not to drift away from European partners – including dropping the idea of a tariff war with Europe that could drive prices back up on both sides. The Irish message would, essentially, Be More Biden.

You hardly need me to explain why this would be a bad strategy to pursue, with this White House, and with this President, in his current pugnacious and radical mood. Moreover, there’s other domestic issues that Martin will have to prioritise; much as he might like to be an EU bridgebuilder, and much as Brussels might want that too, he has enough other stuff on his plate.

Take for example the obsession of Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, with Ireland’s corporate tax arrangements. Lutnick has repeatedly questioned why American-headquartered firms, selling products abroad, routinely file taxes in Ireland instead of the U.S. Ireland could be immediately drained of cash if some relatively small tweaks were made to American tax law that gave those firms an incentive to bring their intellectual property back onshore. That’s a much more urgent issue for the Taoiseach.

And remember: Trump’s not the only one in the room now. What if Lutnick is there too? What if Elon Musk shows up to complain about the treatment of Enoch Burke? What if JD Vance queries proposed laws against incitement to hatred?

There’s any number of pitfalls and little obvious scope for ‘victory’. A 0-0 draw away from home would be an excellent result.