Ireland's Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Simon Harris has said he wasn’t "terribly surprised" by Donald Trump’s dramatic tariff U-turn, adding: "Every meeting I was in, in the US, I was hearing more and more of the word 'negotiation.'"
The Tánaiste made the remarks as he came back from a whistlestop visit to Washington DC this week where he met with US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick.
Mr. Harris said: "It was clear the turmoil being seen on both the stock market and the bond market, and the very real impact that was beginning to have on the lives of American citizens and indeed European citizens, was beginning to take a toll."
The Fine Gael leader learned of the 90-day pause on tariffs during a live interview on RTÉ’s Six One News moments before his meeting with Mr. Lutnick.
Asked about the meeting, he said: "When I met with Secretary Lutnick it had been a very busy day.
"It was clear that they were significantly irked, for want of a stronger word, at the Chinese response and the escalatory cycle that the US and China are in, in terms of slapping tariffs and counter-tariffs on each other."
He also said he was "really pleased" that the EU had decided to suspend the counter-measures in relation to tariffs.
"I very much gleaned from my engagements in Washington [on April 9], in the meeting with the commerce secretary, a sense that we will now move into a period of negotiation," he said.
Mr. Harris said that the search for new markets for Irish goods "must continue to go on" during the 90-day pause of President Trump’s tariffs.
The Tánaiste said that the "vital" EU-US trade relationship was worth €1.6 trillion a year but it "made sense to further diversify."
Both Mr. Harris and Taoiseach Micheál Martin welcomed the 90-day pause on higher US tariffs and EU counter-measures to steel and aluminum tax imports, while warning there was still a risk to the Irish economy.
The Tánaiste, who is also Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister, said the pause provided "a moment to breathe" and needed to be used "in a sensible way to try and make progress."
Mr. Harris added that "we need to find every market for Irish goods" and that "it makes sense to further diversify and to accelerate that process."
He said he’d bring forward proposals to Government to ratify the EU-Canada trade agreement and that engagements were taking place with India, Singapore, Vietnam, and Mexico.
He warned: "It’s still a moment of great risk to the Irish economy, the European economy, the global economy."
Pleased to meet Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick in Washington D.C. today. We discussed President Trump’s tariff announcement.
We had a valuable exchange on pharma and EU-US trade. Ireland will be a voice for calm, constructive engagement. pic.twitter.com/SBjmizhY0J
— Simon Harris TD (@SimonHarrisTD) April 9, 2025
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Mr. Martin said that they had understood from the start that there would be "a negotiating pathway" with the US and not to "overreact."
The Taoiseach said the volatility on bond markets had been "influential" on Mr. Trump’s decision to announce a 90-day pause, but added that "we’re not out of the woods yet."
He said yesterday: "The China-US economic conflict, that was very worrying. That has, on its own, the capacity to continue to dampen investment and lead to instability in the markets. Also, we’re conscious that the 25% (on steel and aluminium) still remains, and we’re looking at a 10% tariff as opposed to a 20% tariff. But I do welcome the EU decision."
He said industries had also been calling for Ireland and the EU to "not overreact."
He said: "Their soundings from the administration were that an overreaction could be counterproductive."
I welcome the EU decision to pause countermeasures against US tariffs.
There is now an opportunity to get this onto a negotiation path. pic.twitter.com/sjFqJ54Nkp
— Micheál Martin (@MichealMartinTD) April 10, 2025
Mr. Trump announced on Wednesday that he would delay huge tariffs on certain nations for 90 days, while raising the US tax rate on Chinese imports to 125%.
The US had announced a 20% tariff for the EU, which would have applied to Ireland, and a 10% rate for the UK last week. Hours after this came into effect on April 9, Mr. Trump announced tariffs would be lowered to 10% on nations that hadn’t retaliated, which included the EU.
Yesterday, the EU announced a 90-day pause in its counter-measures to a 25% tariff announced by Mr. Trump on imported steel and aluminum.
*This article was originally published on Extra.ie.
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