Irish Examiner view: Trump tariff plan in disarray just as his biggest cheerleader exits
US president Donald Trump looks on as Elon Musk speaks — with his son X Æ A-Xii on his shoulders — in the Oval Office of the White House on February 11. Picture: Alex Brandon/AP
Readers may be forgiven for imagining that they hear the high squeal of brakes drifting across the Atlantic, with news that US president Donald Trump’s controversial tariff programme has been stopped and declared illegal by an American court.
The US Court of International Trade in New York found that the legislation cited by Mr Trump as the basis for imposing massive increases in tariffs — the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act — does not, in fact, authorise the use of tariffs.
Because of the singular nature of the Trump presidency, it is not clear yet whether the White House will abide by this ruling. It has already appealed the decision formally but it is entirely conceivable that the administration will simply carry on in defiance of the court’s finding.
Nevertheless, this decision is instructive on its merits, as it shows what happens when established legal procedure encounters the wilder edge of Maga decision-making. Trump has been using tariffs as an on-again, off-again threat since he took office, and the result has been uncertainty and chaos rather than a revitalised US economy. It was significant, for instance, that Wall Street and other financial markets reacted positively to the court ruling yesterday, itself a telling referendum on the global view of Trump’s economic agenda.
The tariff regime wasn’t the only speed bump encountered by the White House this week.
Billionaire Tesla and X owner Elon Musk has left the administration, though he indicated that DOGE (his Department of Government Efficiency) would continue to operate. Mr Musk’s involvement was always envisaged as temporary and his departure was no shock, but it comes just days after he said Trump’s budget bill, which proposes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and a boost to defence spending, was “disappointing”.
It would be wrong to say the Maga project is in a terminal crisis, as a state of roiling uncertainty is its operating mode. Still, questions can legitimately be asked about the scatter-gun approach Mr Trump took in his first 100 days when his biggest cheerleader is gone and his economic masterstroke is illegal.
The ongoing chaos at Children’s Health Ireland took a new turn this week with suggestions that health minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, was considering subsuming CHI into the HSE.
This follows the eye-opening series of controversies at CHI, which functions as the operator of paediatric healthcare in Ireland. Those controversies range from the Health Information and Quality Authority revelations about spinal operations on children at Temple Street Children’s Hospital to the independent audit of hip surgeries on children at Temple Street and Cappagh Hospitals. More recently, we learned of an internal CHI report which found that a consultant had breached guidelines by referring public patients to his private clinic.
The cumulative effect of these revelations has been to create a negative image of CHI — of an organisation operating without the appropriate level of oversight when it comes to the clinical care of children, its raison d’être.
The revelations have already had a serious impact on the CHI’s upper management structure. Since these matters came into the public domain, four board members and the previous chairman have all resigned.
With this background in mind, it is reasonable to ask if CHI can possibly survive in its current form, but opposition to the organisation merging with the HSE emerged quickly yesterday. Irish Voluntary Healthcare Association CEO Mo Flynn told this newspaper: “The Irish Voluntary Healthcare Association does not support any attempts to subsume voluntary hospitals under the aegis of the HSE. This would be a highly complex process with no clear practical benefits to patient care.”
This seems an eminently reasonable point to make — if there is no apparent benefit to patients, why undertake such a challenging task?
It is also worth remembering that CHI was established in 2019 to govern and operate paediatric services in Ireland, and to operate the new national children’s hospital.
That project has had its own travails but, given what we have learned recently, whenever it opens, is Children’s Health Ireland fit to operate it?
This is the 19th year of the Bloom festival and it appears to be going from strength to strength.
Bord Bia Bloom, to give its full title, is an annual highlight for the thousands of gardening enthusiasts who flock to it — more than 100,000 people are expected to attend Bloom in the Phoenix Park over the coming five days.
While the image of gardening may be that of a quiet, solitary pursuit, Bloom is a bustling hive of activity. Visitors can enjoy some 21 show and feature gardens, including Super Garden 2025, created by Laois native Debbie Brophy. They can also take in some of the live cookery demonstrations, or one of the dozens of talks, workshops, and performances.
Interestingly, the festival is stressing climate change, the environment, and sustainable living as themes for this year. This is particularly welcome after the disappointing news this week that Ireland is “going backwards” in our attempts to meet our greenhouse gas emission targets.
If our ordinary citizens commit to fighting climate change as they tend their gardens then there is no reason why the Government cannot follow their lead.
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