Paul Hosford: With so much to balance, Martin’s White House visit will be a high-wire act for the ages

Like many who sit next to Mr Trump as he bloviates, there is a risk of the Taoiseach seeming like a bystander, watching on as Mr Trump bounces from issue to issue

Micheál Martin’s skills will be tested at the White House this year as he navigates the fine line of Irish foreign policy. Picture: Niall Carson/PA 

It was a little over six years ago now when Leo Varadkar looked into a camera and told the nation he needed to speak to us about coronavirus.

Just days removed from the Government cancellation of the St Patrick’s Day parade, it is easy to forget that Mr Varadkar’s grim prognosis was delivered not from Government Buildings, but from the steps of Blair House, the US president’s guest house, ahead of a meeting with Donald Trump.

Within days of that meeting, the world would be upended, and times would become even more unprecedented.

In the years which followed, things didn’t run entirely smoothly for the signature event of Ireland’s foreign policy output. 

In 2021, the continuing covid crisis meant that Joe Biden’s first year as president in 2021 saw Micheál Martin attend the White House virtually with a bowl of shamrock delivered in person as travel restrictions made a fleet of ministers heading abroad impossible.

In 2022, Mr Martin finally got his chance to enter the Oval Office as Taoiseach but was denied the opportunity with just hours to spare.

Having seen Ireland’s restrictions lifted in the weeks previously, Mr Martin fell foul of strict testing protocol in the US and was escorted out of an Ireland Funds dinner in Washington the night before his White House visit during the appetisers, when his PCR test came back positive, just hours before he was due to go to the White House.

Mr Martin had been sitting next to speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi before he was informed of his covid results.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin speaking with US president Joe Biden via video link in the Government Buildings, Dublin.

Ms Pelosi was about to make an award to Mr Martin, but Irish ambassador Dan Mulhall accepted the award instead, and confirmed to the 700 guests in attendance that Mr Martin had tested positive.

“The Taoiseach had a mask on when he sat down, but then when he started to eat, he took off the mask and then they called him aside,” Ms Pelosi would say the day after.

By 2023, the world had emerged from lockdowns, masks, and substantial meals, but the spectre of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, then lurching into its second year, hung over proceedings.

For the most part, however, the trip was relatively low-key — save for Mr Varadkar apologising for “ill-judged” and “off the cuff” comments made at a Washington event which referenced former US president Bill Clinton.

Referring to his time spent as an intern in Washington DC, Mr Varadkar told an event that he had worked in congress during the last year of the Clinton presidency, “when parents might have had cause for concern about what happened to interns” in the city.

The latter half of Mr Clinton’s presidency was shrouded in controversy over his relationship with his intern Monica Lewinsky.

The comment prompted laughter amongst those at the Washington Ireland Program gathering, which was attended by this writer.

A year later, Mr Varadkar’s visit was hailed by this paper as the “high-water mark” in relations between the two countries, coming on the back of a successful visit of Mr Biden to the home soil of his ancestors, but would prove to be the taoiseach’s swansong, as he would step down just days later.

His successor Simon Harris would visit Mr Biden later that year to celebrate the 100 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries, before Mr Martin would be back in office to navigate the return of Donald Trump.

Coming just weeks after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy had been publicly humiliated in the Oval Office, there had been legitimate and well-founded fears Mr Martin was next in line for a White House evisceration.

While that didn’t transpire, Mr Trump did single out Ireland for mention when he railed against those who had “stolen” American industry.

“Ireland was very smart. They took our pharmaceutical companies away from presidents that didn’t know what they were doing and it’s too bad that happened,” Mr Trump said with Mr Martin sat beside him.

About €50bn of medicines are exported from Ireland every year, according to official data, and the fact that America does not produce enough antibiotics to keep its populace healthy was a key point for Mr Trump as he announced sweeping global tariffs, which have since been struck down by his own courts, but caused untold tumult in global markets.

Just a few short weeks ago, Mr Martin might have been looking to his visit to the US as one which could be easier navigated following that supreme court ruling, but the outbreak of a regional conflict between the US-Israel and Iran has thrown world markets and world stability into question and Mr Martin will enter the White House to a president who was always mercurial, but is now completely unpredictable, emboldened by a regime which seems to think Nintendo Wii-based victory videos for a war are appropriate, even while lives are still being lost.

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Mr Martin has long seemed, and in many cases has been, the best man for this type of job. 

His general demeanour when abroad is statesmanlike, reserved, and calm. 

That served him well in general last year, though, like many who sit next to Mr Trump as he bloviates, there is a risk of seeming like a bystander, watching on as Mr Trump bounces from issue to issue.

The Iran war has been felt in Ireland already as the price of petrol and home heating oil rose dramatically in the days after its outbreak and Mr Martin and his Government has been reticent to say that the strikes were done in contravention of international law, but how he navigates the fine line of Irish foreign policy in terms of not being seen to either disagree or agree with Mr Trump will test all of the Taoiseach’s resolve.

Likewise, if Mr Trump is asked by Irish media about his views on Palestine or his own internal migration policy, Mr Martin could have to tread lightly.

The two seemed to be friendly last year, and Mr Martin was invited to travel with Mr Trump to Capitol Hill after a press conference ran (very) long in the Oval Office, but who knows which version of the US president the Taoiseach will encounter next week.

If last year was a circus high-wire act, Mr Martin is this year tasked with something akin to Philippe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York City, a task that may make announcing a pandemic seem easy.