Peter Burke has picked a strange week to visit the United States — and that was even before the agenda-changing shooting of Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump.
Getting the attention any trade mission is designed to secure is a big ask in the week when one of the two big parties holds its national convention. The focus among Republicans — apart from Mr Trump’s health and the circumstances of the assassination attempt at a campaign rally at the weekend — is on picking the team who will fight for the presidency this November.
Congressional Democrats, for their part, are scrambling to rescue the candidature of President Joe Biden while questioning whether they might not be wiser to look elsewhere.
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For sure, the trade mission is putting the emphasis firmly on plans for a series of meetings with C-suite executives from some of the United States’s largest and most dynamic companies. It also sees the Minister for Enterprise’s trip as an “opportunity to build and enhance our partnerships and highlight how Ireland offers a stable and pro-business environment for investment”.
That generally involves meetings with political counterparts to ensure the message is getting through to policymakers.
The Minister travels on the back of data showing that, despite efforts to diversify, Irish exports to North America have jumped almost 60 per cent over the past five years to €6.48 billion in 2023. And North American companies operating in Ireland now employ more than 210,000 people. Both figures are records.
On the flip side, more than 900 Irish-owned companies are now exporting to the United States, with almost three-quarters of those having a full-time physical presence there. The department says 80 new outposts have been established by Enterprise Ireland clients in the country over the past 18 months.
You can see why the Minister might want to get such good news out and spread the message to others considering investment on foreign shores, specifically our shores, or working with Irish businesses arriving in the US. But such bald figures are open to other interpretations in an increasingly protectionist environment. That’s where those political meetings are critical.
