The European Union needs to “act as one” if United States president Donald Trump follows through on threats to place tariffs on all imports coming from Europe, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said.
The Government is preparing for the fallout of Mr Trump levying tariffs on goods EU states export to the US, after he announced sweeping duties on imports from Canada, Mexico and China.
Speaking on Monday, Mr Martin said the EU should be careful not to make any moves “prematurely”, in what politicians and officials fear could escalate into a EU-US trade war.
“First of all we have to see what happens, and assess it, measure it, calibrate the impacts and then develop our response,” the Fianna Fáil leader said. “I wouldn’t do anything prematurely right now, until we see what exactly is being proposed, if something is being proposed,” he said.
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The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm responsible for trade policy, has prepared contingency plans to retaliate in kind, if Mr Trump decides to hit European trade with tariffs.
Ireland would be particularly exposed in any EU-US trade dispute, as it exports billions of euros worth of goods to the US, predominantly from the pharmaceutical sector.
“The European Union has to act as one. We are an economic entity, we have a single market,” Mr Martin said. “In our view, protectionism more generally will harm citizens no matter where they reside, and that tariffs are a negative in respect of economic development,” Mr Martin said.
Mr Martin was speaking in Brussels, where he is attending an informal summit with other EU leaders, to discuss defence policy. The national leaders are also expected to debate how Europe should approach the new Trump administration.
A number of leaders are expected to argue that EU members need to spend more on defence, ease budget rules to free up money for military investment, and jointly fund common projects, like an eastern air defence shield to guard against an attack from Russia.
Mr Martin said Ireland would not “stand in the way” of other EU states finding new ways to facilitate greater defence spending. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had created an “existential” threat to other European states, which Ireland would be “flying in the face of reality” to ignore, he said.
“We have to be realistic and acknowledge where countries like Estonia, Latvia, Poland and others, and Lithuania, they feel under real threat, sometimes we may not appreciate that as much,” he said.
However, he said the Government would be anxious to protect current EU funding for things like farm subsidies and university research, if there was any move to pump more money from the bloc’s common budget towards defence and security.
Mr Martin did not immediately rule out the idea of the EU taking on common debt to finance defence spending. “In principle we are open to different types of proposals that would emerge, but I think that is some distance down the road,” he said.
“Without question Europe cannot continue as it was. The European Union has to make sure there is an enhanced co-operation, sharing of knowledge and experience, creating capacities within the European Union as a whole, to enable people to make sure they can defend themselves as member states of the union,” he said.
UK prime minister Keir Starmer is to join the EU leaders for part of the discussion, where the Labour leader is expected to advocate for the EU and UK to negotiate a defence and security pact, to lock in closer co-operation in the area.
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