United Kingdom and Ireland: Is Donald Trump, the “American friend”?

Since the time of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the United Kingdom has always cultivated with care, whatever the political sign of Downing Street, the “special relationship” with the United States. In the case of Ireland, its economic survival has depended to a large extent that things march well on the other side of the Atlantic. For Dublin, the decisions of the White House or of the American treasure have more than domestic politics than international. The arrival of Donald Trump, with its burden of unpredictability and disruption, rests with both governments.

The Irish fear for the possible end of the manna that for decades have provided the taxes raised to the US multinationals who chose the island as their corporate headquarters in the EU. London, with a Labor Executive in the ideological antipodes of the Republican President, and broken all the moorings with the EU after a painful and harmful Brexit, fears to be isolated, in nobody’s land.

“The United States represents the most important bilateral partner of the United Kingdom in terms of defense, security and foreign policy. Since World War II, successive British governments have intertwined their defense, security and intelligence capabilities with US administrations, ”said Professor Richard Whitman, analyst at the UK In A Changing Europe Thought Center. “All this has had magnificent benefits for the United Kingdom, but it has also meant admitting limitations to its autonomy. The political, security and foreign policy decisions of the new administration of Donald Trump will consequently have a direct impact on London, ”concludes Whitman.

The EU market continues to monopolize more than 50% of exports and imports from the United Kingdom. But from an individual point of view, country by country, the United States represents the main destination of British exports (more than 70,000 million euros in goods, and almost 150,000 million in services).

Trump’s threat to increase tariffs on Europe’s products – and for the moment the warning includes the United Kingdom – would mean a 0.7% reduction of British GDP for 2025, according to a report by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. A sake for a country with frozen growth (0.1% for 2024) and for a Labor Government that sees these days how the public debt shoots and the markets turn their backs.

Paradoxically, there are many voices that resurrect the urgent need to rethink the Brexit debate, which both Labor and conservative wanted to lock in a drawer. Out of the EU it’s very cold.

A questioned ambassador, an island in dispute

Despite the close ties that the current ambassador of the United Kingdom in Washington, Karen Pierce, had forged with the Trump environment – which served to set up a cordial dinner in New York between the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and then the then still Republican candidate -, the head of Labor Government has decided to appoint a new ambassador, and has chosen a controversial character: Peter Mandelson, former Minister of Tony Blair and former EU trade trade, nicknamed “the prince of darkness” for his capacity of political influence between bambalins.

Although the Starmer government still describes as a rumor the idea that Trump rejects the credentials, next February, of a politician who defined in his day the new US president as someone “very close to the idea of ​​a nationalist and racist white man ”, That fear is present. Chris Lacivita, a man close to Trump and responsible for his electoral campaign, has defined Mandelson on social networks as “an absolute cretin.” The position of the British politician with respect to China, favorable to an approach with Beijing, clashes frontally with the ideas of the new US administration.

The new White House team has already made it clear that it does not respect the commitments adopted by the administration of Joe Biden. Last October, the Starmer government announced to Bombo and Sweetland that it had closed a historical international dispute. The Chagos Archipelago, in the Indian Ocean, would become part of Mauricio’s island nation. In exchange for the return of sovereignty, both London and Washington have ensured control, at least for 99 years, of the joint military base of Diego García Island, in the southern part of the archipelago.

The new US foreign policy manager, Marco Rubio, has already warned that he considers that agreement “a serious threat to national security” of the United States, by “putting the US military position in the region at risk.” Mauricio maintains very solid links with China and India.

Ireland’s taxes

Ireland is not understood without the United States. The island has 6.6 million inhabitants (4.75 in the Republic, and 1.8 in the British territory of Northern Ireland). About 35 million Americans claim their Irish blood. It is the only European country where there is American border control at its airport. Thus, you can travel from Dublin to Chicago or Kansas City, for example, as if it were a domestic flight.

The advantage of societies (12.5%) that Ireland has charged for years the technological multinationals has turned Dublin and Cork into the European corporate headquarters of giants such as Apple, Meta or Google. Only in 2024, the income generated for public coffers were 28,000 million euros, 18% more than the previous year (not counting the backward payment in tax that European justice forced Apple, which meant 14,000 million more).

The decision announced by Trump, through an executive order, to withdraw the United States from the 2021 OECD agreement, which imposed a minimum tax tax of 15%, as well as responding aggressively against those countries that impose extraterritorial taxes on American companies have unleashed nerves in the new Dublin government, still engaged in the formation of a coalition.

“It is important to note that, although taxes are important, they are not the only factor that attracts direct foreign investment to Ireland,” said the Irish Finance Department, already prepared to place the bandage before the possible wound.