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Irish prime minister set to meet Trump in White House

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Irish economy is vulnerable to Trump's economic plans

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Concern over impact on jobs, tax revenue and exports

By Padraic Halpin

DUBLIN, March 11 (Reuters) - Irish Prime Minister

Micheál Martin faces a diplomatic balancing act during talks

with Donald Trump on Wednesday, with Ireland among the countries

most vulnerable to the U.S. president's economic plans.

The annual White House meeting to mark St Patrick's Day is

usually relatively straightforward for the country of 5.4

million, symbolised since the 1950s by the gifting of a bowl of

shamrock to the president in the Oval Office.

Recent meetings were with Trump's proudly Irish-American

predecessor Joe Biden. This year's meeting with Trump entails

more uncertainty, with many Irish jobs, tax revenue and exports

directly dependent on a cluster of U.S. multinational firms.

"I am very, very conscious that in a very challenging world,

thousands and thousands of jobs depend on the economic

relationship between the United States and Ireland," Martin, who

plans to highlight the 115,000 people Irish firms employ in the

U.S., said at the start of the six-day trip marking the March 17

holiday for Ireland's patron saint.

U.S. firms have operated in Ireland for decades, attracted

in large part by its low corporate tax rate. The mainly

U.S.-owned foreign multinational workforce totals 302,000, or

11% of all workers, and they contribute most of a corporate tax

take that has handed Ireland large budget surpluses.

Top of Irish concerns is whether Trump will focus on the

U.S. goods trade deficit with Ireland, driven by drugs and

pharmaceutical ingredients made in the European Union member

state by U.S companies that are exported back to the U.S.

The world's 10 largest drugmakers, including Johnson &

Johnson ( JNJ ), Pfizer ( PFE ) and Merck ( MRK ), have large

plants in Ireland.

Ireland's Central Statistics Office said the deficit was a

record 50 billion euros ($54.2 billion) last year. Using a

different measure, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis put it

at $87 billion, ahead of Canada and Germany and behind only

Vietnam, Mexico and China.

The U.S. has a large surplus in services trade with Ireland,

as with the EU as a whole.

Trump has threatened a 25% tariff on pharmaceutical imports

and on goods from the EU, both of which would catch Ireland in

its crosshairs. He also made an election pledge to slash the

U.S. corporate tax rate to the top Irish rate of 15%, which

would be even more damaging.

Martin will be the first EU leader to visit the Oval Office

since Trump's explosive meeting there with Ukrainian President

Volodymyr Zelenskiy. As Ireland was one of three European

countries that last year officially recognised a Palestinian

state, Martin could also faces a balancing act when discussing

the Middle East.

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