The New Transatlantic Relationship: What Are Ireland’s Strategic Objectives for a Second Trump Term

Vengence is coming to the Potomac and all counts point to Leinster House being lamentably underprepared.

Days shy of an American presidential election and even projections point to a second and likely proactive Trump White House term but in a radically changed world than the halcyon days of 2016.

No greater mainstream sage than David McWilliams has opined that weeds have become sprouting among the foundations of Ireland Inc. with a protectionist U.S and a federalist EU threatening to knock the Irish economy out of the neoliberal goldilocks zone it has been in the last half-century.

“In many ways, Ireland was blessed by the incompetence of Trump’s first term. What happens if this potential administration is staffed by competent technocrats from the ranks of the Heritage Foundation – an isolationist, America First think tank that is equipped with the knowledge of how to pull the levers in DC?”

While the commentariat has focused on the social implications of the much-lambasted Project 2025 the economic impact on Ireland will be profound if implemented due to the environmental deregulation and protectionism that is designed solely to put America ahead.

Hard politics is returning to the world just the same as the era of replacement migration politics has hit our island like a brick and none of the diplomatic calculations used since the Belfast Agreement count for much anymore.

By chance and chance alone Ireland avoided a reckoning during the Brexit and original Trumps brazen enough to think our opinion matters more than our partitioned and economically dependent island allows.

Dublin, and Belfast for that matter in geopolitical terms has been on easy street for a generation in a half as American capital flocked to our shores in the post-crash period to fill the chasm left by the collapse of gombeen economics in 2008.

Indefinitely wedded to the Democratic Party by blood and by NGO funny money Ireland played the field using its natural strengths as an Anglophone island at the doorstep of Europe.

If you think the quickfire demographic change of the past decade will define our politics imagine putting this migration crisis in the context of an economic recession triggered by the reshoring of American commerce back to Pittsburgh, Boston, and LA.

With all of this fire and fury on the horizon where do Ireland’s interests eye as power relations shift stateside? 

This publication humbly suggests the following.

–Decoupling from the Dems,  With Trump 2.0 the time has come to stop placing our political eggs in one past with excessive support and dependence on the American Democratic Party. Understandable due to the natural place of our diaspora Irish-America to the extent it still exists is shifting party affiliation with every election into the GOP family. Being seen so nakedly partisan with very little return places Dublin in needless jeopardy and even opens the door to a deflated unionism picking up favour among GOP elites.

-Nailing a China Policy, All roads appear to lead to a war in the Indo-Pacific by mid-century with Ireland occupying an interesting place in the new Great Game. Despite this, a dearth of an Irish foreign policy establishment has yet to properly chart a course to navigate between Beejing and the Pentagon. A Sinophile gateway to Europe or DC’s clearing house for Chinese multinationals regardless of the merits of each approach certainty is needed now on what approach we are taking to this new Cold War.

-Industrialisation or Bust, the era of simplistic protectionism may have come and gone but the Republic is without any excuse to at least retain the skeleton of a working national economy. FDI will not disappear in the morning and neither should we wish it to but the training wheels will eventually be taken off our domestic economy in the not-too-distant future. We are not reinventing the wheel but seeking the equivalent level of national economic independence that the Netherlands or the average Scandinavian nation-state has and any conversation about Apple Tax or equivalent lacking unless it includes the need to claw back national economics.

-Ending Partition the Atlanticist Case, Similar to the ending of hostilities and the shutting diplomacy between the Clinton White House, Iveagh House, and rival paramilitaries partition will ultimately end with a signoff from America. Paralleling a Labour administration cutting ties with the remains of Empire London is seeking an Irish exit and many security interests now prefer a united Ireland should it be aligned with the Atlantic military alliance. The necessity to merge the security jurisdictions of north and south is the major propellant for unity in this decade and something a national-minded government in Dublin should lean into. Arguing in Washington that Ireland united presents less headaches for Washington against Russia or China is ultimately the talking point that will make policymakers consider the old sod as unionism continues its meltdown for all the road to see.

Conclusion, 

Regardless of the BLM and COVID era nadir of 2020 American power and hegemony are here to stay for a generation at least. While flexibility is needed to move outside the American shadow Ireland must accustom itself to the tectonic changes underway as Trumpism heralds a new assertive US federal machine. 

Our transatlantic policy cannot be shamrock bowls and cocktails with the Clintons heading into the second quarter of the 21st century with Ireland’s geostrategic positioning on the Atlantic making us primed to reap the benefits of any positive orientation.