Donald Trump’s visit to Ireland this weekend was supposed to be a quiet trip to watch a golf tournament.
There was no major summit, no plans for a big event, and Irish politicians had made it clear their primary goal for Trump’s trip was to get through it without any major diplomatic incidents.
For the first hour or two, things seemed to be going to plan. Trump’s agreed itinerary kept him away from potential crowds of protestors, and he was given a relatively low-key greeting by the President and Taoiseach. All that remained was a short press Q&A session before Trump could go and watch his golf.
And then, Donald Trump declared his support for Irish reunification. “I’d love to see it unified,” he said. “I think it would be a great feather in everybody’s cap if that happened. It’s going to happen eventually…yeah, I think it would be a fantastic thing.
“Now the UK will have something to say about it, obviously. But I think it would be a great thing. I mean, how can it be bad?”
Donald Trump reiterated his remarks on a unified Ireland during a speech at the US Embassy in Dublin (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty)To call the issue a sensitive one is a dramatic understatement: people have fought and died for both sides of this cause for more than a century. The current relatively peaceful status quo was achieved through the Northern Irish peace process, which involved painstaking, grinding diplomacy over a period of years – with significant US involvement.
There has always been more US awareness of the Northern Irish troubles than many other European conflicts: the UK is one of the USA’s closest military allies, and its closest intelligence partner across the world. But many Americans have Irish ancestry, and the two countries have long celebrated that bond.
As a result, President Clinton was deeply involved in brokering the Good Friday Agreement, carefully picking every word he said, and pushing both sides behind the scenes to make concessions, in a delicately managed process.
Donald Trump, by contrast, has waded in largely unasked with huge, stamping feet. Though the Good Friday Agreement has endured for nearly 30 years, it has been under pressure in recent years – Brexit tested its terms, and the possibility of the UK leaving key mechanisms like the European Court of Human Rights could challenge it further.
The US president seemingly declaring his strong support for one side would, in normal circumstances, dramatically upend the status quo – not least because Northern Ireland’s loyalists are the faction which has spoken most favourably of Trump, who they thought would be more on their side than Biden, a Catholic president with Irish heritage.
But generally, no normal US president would make a pronouncement like Trump’s without significant diplomatic work alongside it. His team would have laid groundwork with key officials in the UK and Irish governments. There would be a communications plan, and a rationale. Diplomats would have worked on it for weeks. It would be a statement of intent.
Trump made the remarks on Irish unity while sat next to Taoiseach Micheal Martin (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty)At this stage, everyone knows that isn’t how Donald Trump’s administration operates in its second term. Instead, the 80-year-old president just tends to say whatever pops into his head at any given moment, and whatever seems like a good idea at the time. If someone puts it to him in different terms later, he might say something else entirely.
Trump might even argue he didn’t say who Ireland should be united under. The obvious implication of his statement is an independent, unified island of Ireland. But the chaotic president might argue he meant it should all be part of the UK, since everyone’s friends now. More likely, he might suddenly decide that Ireland – like Greenland – would make a great addition to the USA, and offer it statehood.
Trump is so volatile that his words no longer carry the weight that they once did, and certainly not the weight that his office implies. Even a few short years ago, everything the US president said was international news, because it could be assumed that everything he said mattered. Now, we almost always have to wait a few days to see whether Trump really means it or not.
Whatever Trump’s intent, any hopes for a relatively quiet weekend are surely over: Trump has made headline news on an issue that is life-and-death, especially for the people living in Northern Ireland. The mess he left behind will be for others to clean up, though. Trump himself has golf to watch, after all.
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