For all the lost sleep during the fraught years of Brexit negotiations, Irish politicians and diplomats – past and present – look back fondly on the open door they had when pushing their case about how the European Union should respond.
Successive governments were able to ensure Ireland’s main red line – to prevent any return to a hard border between the Republic and Northern Ireland – became, in turn, a red line for the European Commission, the EU executive arm leading the bloc’s negotiations with the UK government.
Ireland succeeded in getting the rest of the EU to row in behind its position, and more importantly remain there, during the lengthy, often ugly, talks as the EU and UK hammered out the terms of London’s divorce from the union.
Those diplomatic efforts during the Brexit years are viewed as the high watermark of Irish influence inside the EU in recent times.
‘It makes me sick’: Mass anti-Trump protests in US cities see Americans express their fear and loathing
An Irish doctor on why she believes autism, ADHD and depression are being overdiagnosed
What is behind the unshakeable popularity of the boy’s name Jack in Ireland?
Girl (6) dies after being hit by truck while cycling in Galway
Now the Government is one of many shouting to be heard, as the European Commission prepares to respond to sweeping tariffs the United States has levied on transatlantic trade.
[ Trump tariffs: Taoiseach urges caution amid signs of EU divisionOpens in new window ]
US president Donald Trump announced nearly all goods sold from the EU into the US would be charged import tariffs of 20 per cent. This follows tariffs of 25 per cent the Trump administration had already slapped on imports of steel, aluminium and cars, coming from the EU and elsewhere.
The commission, which sets EU trade policy for the 27-nation economic bloc, has drawn up plans for retaliatory tariffs on a range of US products and goods.
Exactly what products and sectors of the US economy the EU should target has been the subject of intense lobbying behind closed doors over recent weeks.
Every EU capital has been making representations to the commission, in most cases to try to keep particular domestic industries from being drawn further into the escalating US-EU trade dispute.
The Government was concerned that plans to hike import duties on US bourbon would see Trump retaliate with even higher tariffs on Irish whiskey.
Ireland has also been in the ear of the commission about dairy products and pharmaceuticals, which account for a huge chunk of Ireland’s exports to the US.
Germany, Ireland, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Belgium are the EU’s biggest exporters to the US. As a small, open economy with a huge flow of trade to the US, Ireland is the most exposed to a prolonged trade war.
It is understood that European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has privately expressed an appreciation for how Ireland is vulnerable on pharmaceutical exports.
The pharma sector is a strategically important one for the EU, so the idea of US companies uprooting manufacturing capacity in Ireland and moving it back home is something the commission wants to avoid.
Pharmaceuticals were not included in the blanket 20 per cent tariffs announced this week, but are expected to be targeted at a later date, possibly at a rate of 25 per cent.
The Government has been busy finding friends in the EU who want to keep pharma exports out of the fray for as long as possible. That group probably includes Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands.
Ireland has found common ground with France and Italy, in expressing concerns that proposed EU tariffs on US bourbon would lead Trump to hit back hard against European exports of whiskey, wine and Champagne. This opposition seems to have led the commission to reconsider including bourbon in its first tranche of retaliatory tariffs, one source said.
Officials in the commission’s trade department are keeping their cards close to their chest, as is von der Leyen.
The aim of the EU’s counter-tariffs is to put pressure on Trump to negotiate. There is no avoiding the fact such retaliation will lead to economic pain in Europe, one commission source said.
The usually leaky bubble of diplomats and officials in Brussels has been much more tight-lipped when it comes to tariff talk. Most of the back and forth is between senior commission figures and politicians in national capitals.
During the Brexit days Irish officials could hardly have been more in the loop. When the commission was negotiating with the UK in its Berlaymont headquarters in Brussels, an Irish delegation was often holed up in a room two or three doors down the hall, to allow EU officials to pop in to get quick feedback mid-discussion.
Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris has been in regular contact with European trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič, who is taking point on tariffs.
Harris and the Slovakian politician have spoken on the phone several times in the last fortnight. However, Dublin is just one of 27 capitals that Sefcovic has to try to keep happy and up-to-date.
Importantly, backing up Ireland during Brexit did not cost other EU member states anything. There was a sense Ireland should not suffer for the UK’s decision to leave the union.
“We were pushing an open door,” one Irish official involved at the time said.
This time around Ireland is economically exposed because of the large concentration of US multinationals, who have for decades availed of its favourable corporate tax arrangements, to the envy and annoyance of European neighbours.
Ireland probably won’t get much sympathy from the rest of the EU on this one.
