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ON ARRIVAL AT the White House on Wednesday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin and US president Donald Trump spent around 15 minutes walking together around the grounds of the building.
The two leaders walked along the so-called Presidential Walk of Fame, the gallery of presidential portraits installed by Trump along the west colonnade of the White House, looking on to where the rose garden used to be before it was paved over on Trump’s orders.
Reaching the end of the line, notably, Joe Biden’s portrait is excluded from the display.
In place of a photo, Biden is represented by an image of an autopen – a machine that replicates signatures – in a not-too-subtle dig at the former president. Trump has repeatedly criticised Biden for his use of an autopen, despite numerous presidents making use of one.
Perhaps it was a stark reminder to Micheál Martin that once you fall on the wrong side of Trump, he doesn’t forget.
The Taoiseach was probably hoping that this would not happen to him.
In their private chat before their very public press conference, the two are understood to have discussed many of the topics that were to come up in the Oval Office in front of the media.
Trump, donning a green tie for St Patrick’s Day, spoke to Martin of his love of Ireland and Doonbeg, and the great historical bonds between Ireland and the US.
A point Trump raised later in the Speakers’ Lunch on Capitol Hill was that 23 presidents had Irish blood, a fact that seemed to take him aback a bit.
The Taoiseach is understood to have spent a decent bit of time with President Trump without the media present, including their time walking the grounds and a few minutes after the press left the Oval Office.
The Taoiseach and his wife Mary also had quite a bit of time with the US president before and after the shamrock ceremony that evening – though that was more of an informal, friendly chat while doing photos, it is believed.
During those talks, the two leaders discussed the large number of Irish-Americans and the enormous investment Ireland has in the US.
Trade between the US and Europe and Ireland was also raised, as was the war in Iran, according to sources.
It was the matter of Iran that dominated the agenda in the Oval Office and which has drawn the most criticism for the Taoiseach, particularly his comment that Trump was doing “his bit” to achieve peace in the Middle East.
During the press conference in the Oval Office, which visibly has a lot more gaudy gold features in it than in previous years, Trump rambled on uninterrupted about Iran.
Criticisms have been laid at the feet of the Taoiseach that he didn’t jump in to call out the war as a breach of international law. However, Martin didn’t do that before he left for the US, so he wasn’t going to start doing it in front of Trump.
It is notable, however, that immediately after his visit to the US, Martin suddenly felt comfortable enough to condemn Israeli strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure.
Overall, there was much praise for the Taoiseach in how he dealt with the Oval Office meeting.
The former short-lived US press secretary Anthony Scaramucci praised the Taoiseach on The Rest is Politics podcast this week saying, “He [Micheál Martin] handled Trump about as well as anybody could handle Trump, in terms of deflecting him, stating some European values, and getting out of the room without getting scarred”.
“So he did really well,” said Scaramucci.
A big focus on the economy & innovation in Washington DC.
— Micheál Martin (@MichealMartinTD) March 16, 2026
A two-way success for 🇮🇪 🇺🇸
I’m;
➡️ Meeting exciting EI, IDA & Bord Bia companies, and talking two-way trade with Amazon.
➡️ Launching Irish Lamb in the US, and;
➡️ A US-Ireland Research initiative with NI. pic.twitter.com/xCNAjhiLYj
While international issues dominated much of the ‘media spray’ in the Oval Office, as they call it in the US, the main focus of this St Patrick’s Day trip was business and trade.
During that time, the Taoiseach would have been keen to impress on the US president many of the trade facts that had been repeated ad nauseam in every speech Martin gave in Philadelphia and Washington DC in the first few days of his trip to the US.
These included how Ireland is the fifth-largest investor in the US, and how 200,000 workers are employed in more than 800 Irish businesses in the US.
It appeared these facts did filter through, with Trump echoing them in his own speeches that day.
High-end business publications, such as Fortune, also picked up on Irish government initiative on this trip reporting on St Patrick’s Day: ‘Ireland courts US companies as Taoiseach brings deals to Trump on St Patrick’s Day.’
In the run-up to the White House visit, there were a number of high-level business events held in Washington DC, including an Enterprise Ireland and Amazon event in the DuPont Circle Hotel attended by company executives, as well as key business lunch in the Intercontinental Willard Hotel attended by American and Irish business people, just a stone’s throw from the White House.
There were also meetings with the IDA and Bord Bia, as well as a re-launch of Irish lamb in the US. Yes, a re-launch of lamb.
Speaking at the lunch, Ireland’s ambassador to the US Geraldine Byrne Nason and Taoiseach Micheál Martin addressed the crowd. Byrne Nason said:
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a government that’s as pro-business, pro-innovation, pro-competition, as the government of Ireland is today.
Martin pushed hard to sell Ireland, telling the crowd of wealthy business leaders that if they came up against “obstacles” or “challenges” in how they operate, they should get in touch with the government so that those obstacles could be removed.
Martin went on to cite the statistic again which puts Ireland as the fifth-largest foreign investor in America, worth more than $390 billion (€337 billion).
Taoiseach Micheal Martin’s pitch to American business yesterday at a lunch in Washington DC.
— Christina Finn (@christinafinn8) March 17, 2026
Yesterday the main focus was business and jobs. As seen here, the message was the Irish government will move mountains for companies in a bid to get their business. pic.twitter.com/wFOsItURxE
Meanwhile, at the Amazon event with Enterprise Ireland, the Taoiseach said how the rollout of data centres was a priority for government.
All of this is to say: The St Patrick’s Day government programme this year felt more like a massive trade mission.
Yes, trade and business features every year on this trip, but this year it felt like the stakes were higher and the push was harder to attract US business and sell Ireland.
On the back of tariff threats, the government is working to firm up links between the two countries and is eager to dispel any myths that doing business in Europe and in Ireland is difficult.
This was something the Taoiseach mentioned in the interactions he had with Trump in the Oval Office, pointing out that Europe needs to focus more on innovation rather than regulation.
With Irish business being a big focus, it is no surprise that the CEO and co-founder of Stripe Patrick Collison was drafted for a few events.
He addressed the Ireland Funds dinner in Washington DC, telling the crowd of some 800 or so Irish-American politicians, business and community leaders that Ireland had catapulted from being the poor man of Europe to being one of the richest nations in the EU.
CEO and co-founder of Stripe Patrick Collison addressed the Ireland Funds dinner last night in Washington DC.
— Christina Finn (@christinafinn8) March 17, 2026
He said Ireland catapulted from being the poor man in Europe to being one of the richest nations in the EU. pic.twitter.com/sErMWhBH43
He said his company has been defined by the deep and enduring friendship between Ireland and America.
“John and I came to America as teenagers. We founded Stripe in Silicon Valley and eventually boomeranged back, such that Stripe is today dual headquartered in California and in Dublin… we are spectacularly grateful to have the chance, like so many before us, to live the Irish-American dream,” said Collison.
In moments of transition, like the one we are seeing now with AI, there are “particular demands on leadership”, he said in his speech, commending the Taoiseach.
“We’re tremendously fortunate to the Taoiseach who is adept at identifying what should change… and what should remain the same. He’s navigated many of these situations, to say the least, from Covid to Brexit, and many more besides, all about maintaining Ireland’s competitive and stable position. He’s championed the enduring strength of the transatlantic partnership, while also pushing for greater and necessary dynamism in European countries,” said Collison.
The day after these cheerleading words for the Taoiseach, Collison was also a guest at the vice-president JD Vance’s breakfast event on St Patrick’s Day.
It is understood that he didn’t flag or discuss a new report, funded by him and his brother and published just a day or so after their meeting with the Taoiseach, that finds that Ireland’s economic model is in urgent need of reform to sustain high living standards.
The study, by University of Galway professor Alan Ahearne, says Ireland is heavily reliant on a relatively small number of multinationals and needs to create indigenous high-growth firms.
“The level of productivity at foreign firms is around six times the level of productivity of domestic firms,” the report found.
The study said the reliance on multinationals was seen by many as a “structural vulnerability of the Irish economy which public policy should seek to address”.
Sources state a discussion on the report, which was published just a day after Martin left the US, was not on the Washington agenda and it was not brought up informally by Patrick Collison, though the Taoiseach discussed investment and trade issues generally.
One thing that was mentioned by Trump himself was the trade deficit the US president believes there is between the US and Ireland.
In a strongly worded statement, he said something would have to be done about it, stating that Ireland would have to buy a lot of American “stuff” to close the gap.
According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) Ireland had a trade deficit with the United States of almost €93 billion last year.
While Ireland has a big trade surplus with the US in terms of goods (meaning it sells more goods to the US than the US sells back to Ireland), this is offset by a large trade in services going the other way.
The trade surplus with the US in goods has become a source of tension with the US president.
Government sources state they weren’t surprised it was brought up by Trump and that is why the Taoiseach said in his Capitol Hill speech that huge investments by Ireland were being made and how it would take Boeing an entire year just to deal with current Irish orders alone – a comment which made Trump smirk.
This massive trade push at the events in the US were strategic and a long time in the making, but it remains to be seen if the message landed that Ireland is simultaneously a small fish in a big EU pond and a notable player all on its own.
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