Ireland was singled out by US President Donald Trump as he announced a 25% tariff on imports of automobiles and certain automobile parts yesterday, Wednesday, March 26.
"It's also exciting because of what's happening with other aspects," Trump said in remarks in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
"We're going to be doing tariffs on pharmaceuticals in order to bring our pharmaceutical industry back.
"We don't make anything here in terms of drugs, medical drugs, different types of drugs that you need, medicines.
"It's in other countries, largely made in China, a lot of it made in Ireland - Ireland was very smart, we love Ireland, but we're going to have that."
You can watch US President Donald Trump's remarks on auto tariffs here:
According to RTÉ News, Ireland exported approximately €72 billion to the US last year, a large proportion driven by pharmaceutical products manufactured by US multinationals.
The morning after Trump threatened pharmaceutical tariffs, the Dublin-based Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) said in a new report that the "overall impact of tariffs will be greater for the Irish economy if the US specifically targets pharmaceutical products."
Commenting on the report, author Conor O’Toole of the ESRI stated: “While the Irish economy entered 2025 in a relatively positive position, the outlook is clouded by international developments.
"Changes in US tariffs and policy will have a notable impact on Ireland and could hurt key sectors such as pharmaceuticals."
Trump's reference to Ireland in the scope of the pharmaceutical industry comes not long after he addressed it during his meeting with Taoiseach Micheál Martin in the White House on March 12.
Trump claimed Ireland "took our pharmaceutical companies away from Presidents that didn't know what they were doing, and you know it's too bad that happened."
However, he continued: "It's a tremendous job.
"I give - look, the Irish are smart. You have smart people and you took our pharmaceutical companies and other companies, but you know, through taxation and proper taxation, they made it very, very good for companies to move over there.
"And we had Presidents and people that were involved in this that had no idea what they were doing. And they lost big segments of our economy."
Later, Trump said Ireland was "of course" included in his claim that "the EU was set up in order to take advantage of the United States."
"You know, I have great respect for Ireland and what they did, and they should have done just what they did," Trump said.
"But the United States shouldn't have let it happen. We had stupid leaders. We had leaders that didn't have a clue. Or let's say they weren't businesspeople, but they didn't have a clue what was happening.
"And all of a sudden, Ireland has our pharmaceutical companies and other - this beautiful island of 5 million people has got the entire US pharmaceutical industry in its grasp.
"And you mentioned housing and you mentioned other things. I mean, I have property in Ireland, as you know, and I love it. It does great.
"But I'd like to have - I'd like to see the United States not have been so stupid for so many years, not just with Ireland, with everybody."
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