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32 counties and 50 states
'He's not as orange as he looks': Shock and guffaw on Trump's pro-United Ireland comments
Trump said today that he’d ‘love to see’ a unified Ireland.
THERE HAS BEEN rapid reaction from across the political spectrum to Donald Trump’s comments that he would “love to see” a United Ireland.
The US President made the comments during a rapid-fire 20-minute press conference alongside Taoiseach Micheál Martin in Farmleigh House before he reiterated his stance later.
“The way I look at it, it’s going to happen eventually. It will happen. It may as well happen now,” Trump said.
Martin did not speak on the matter during the press conference, despite Trump referring to Martin and saying “you got the right man over here to get it moving”.
In a statement this afternoon, however, the Taoiseach has said that Trump’s comments “should come as a surprise to no one” as he has been “consistent in his view that he sees unity in Ireland as the optimal outcome”.
Martin said he told Trump that “he leads a party that supports Irish unity” but that he also pressed on Trump the “importance of creating stronger communities and shared experiences on the island”.
Over in Downing Street, the British government has responded to Donald Trump’s comments, stressing that its position has not changed.
A Downing Street spokesperson said Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s view remains that “there is no majority public support for another referendum, and until that changes, there will not be one”.
Under the Good Friday Agreement, the British government has agreed to hold a referendum on unity if it deems there is a majority for that position in Northern Ireland.
Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch was more strident in her view, saying that Burnham needed to rule out a referendum in a clearer manner.
She criticised Trump for “shooting from the hip as usual, just like he did with Greenland and Canada becoming the 51st state. ”
Unionists in Northern Ireland have unsurprisingly been critical of Trump’s comments, with DUP leader Gavin Robinson posted on X to say that unionists “are not interested in the destruction of our country by joining with the Irish Republic.”
“Northern Ireland’s constitutional future will be decided by the people of Northern Ireland, not by commentary in London, Dublin or Washington. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom because that is the settled democratic will of its people,” he said.
Jim Allister of the hardline TUV said that Trump “is not the first US president to meddle in the affairs which don’t concern him”.
He added: “Northern Ireland is not a pawn in Trump’s fall-out with the UK. Our constitutional future does not depend on him or any other foreign dignitary.”
Ulster Unionist Party Leader Jon Burrows MLA said the US president “like anyone else in the world, is entitled to express his view on the constitutional future of another country”.
“But the only people whose decision counts are the people of Northern Ireland,” he said.
On the nationalist side, Sinn Féin wasn’t going all in on Trump’s comments but didn’t want to loom a gift horse in the mouth either, with Louise O’Reilly TD describing the comments from Trump as “interesting”, adding that there is bi-partisan support in the US for Irish unity.
“Does the man talk off the cuff? Yes, he does sometimes. But the remarks come six months after Zohran Mamdani, the Mayor of New York…also spoke in very positive terms about Irish unity,” she said.
“The fact is that conversation is happening, it’s happening here on this island it’s also happening in America.”
The SDLP was taking a light-hearted view of Trump’s comments. MP for Foyle and former leader Colum Eastwood shared a clip of Trump making the comments and said: “Always liked him.”
The party’s current leader and MP for South Belfast and Mid Down Claire Hanna said:
“Donald Trump in the last hour has announced that he is in favour of a United Ireland. Turns out he’s not as orange as he looks.”
She added: “I’m not sure if anybody’s checked on the DUP. I suspect they’re burning those Trump flags as we speak. But folks, I think that underlines as clearly as anything that change is happening.”
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