US President Donald Trump has told reporters that he doesn’t ‘want to do anything to hurt Ireland’.
President Trump added he is very popular with Irish-American citizens voting in last November’s US election, saying it is a “wonderful place”.
“If I drained Ireland of all of the… I’d lose the Irish vote,” he said.
However, he accused Ireland of ‘taking’ US pharmaceutical companies through taxation measures.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin responded to US President Donald Trump’s comments about the Irish economy by saying ‘it’s a two way street’.
Mr Martin referenced airline Ryanair and said it is one of the largest buyers of Boeing equipment, and that thousands of jobs in America are in Irish firms, saying ‘we’ve added value to America’.
He said: “I understand where you are coming from fully”.
US president Donald Trump responded by saying there is an economic ‘deficit’ with Ireland, and others, and that he wants to ‘work this out as nicely as we can’.
