US and EU ‘need each other’, says Irish premier after Trump election win

Irish premier Simon Harris has said that the US and EU needed each other before the US election, and continue to need each other now.

He indicated that the election of US President-elect Donald Trump and his approach going forward had been discussed at a meeting of the European Political Community in Budapest on Thursday.

The Taoiseach told media on Friday that the tone of the meeting was “very much in the space of, ‘Europe needs to get its act together when it comes to competitiveness’”.

“That was the sort of blunt language that was being used in the room, because politics is about pragmatism,” Mr Harris said.

“And at the end of the day, the people of the United States of America have decided who they wish to be the next president, they have decided who they wish to have control of the US Senate and US House of Representatives, and in all cases they have decided to hand control of those three branches of government to the Republican Party.

“There is now clarity from a policy point of view as to the direction of travel America is likely to take over the next number of years, so that leads to: what does Europe wish to do? And I think there is that real sense of the importance of strategic autonomy, the importance of controlling what we can control here in Europe.

“No other part of the world owes us a living. You expect the president of the United States to stand up for US interests, it’s important now that European leaders do all that we can to stand up for European interests.

“But also, this was the path we were on anyway, a real renewed focus on things like competitiveness, completing advancing the work of the single market, a lot of colleagues expressing frustration, which I share, around delivery times for major infrastructure, particularly in relation to renewable energy.”

He emphasised that the US and the EU “needed each other before the US presidential election”, and “they need each other after the US presidential election”.

“At the end of the day, Donald Trump is a businessman,” he said.

“I think we need to make the case quite clearly, and it is a case backed up by fact, that a protectionist approach to trade isn’t good and actually tariffs and the likes won’t have the positive impact that he would like to think they would on the people who voted for him in their own lives,” he said.

“Actually, what needs to happen here is we need to look at how the EU and US can continue to strengthen their trade bonds.”

Mr Harris also said there had been a very resolute view that the EU must stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.

“The US had its election and it made its decision but that doesn’t change European values, and European values around the importance of the UN Charter, the importance of territorial integrity remain,” he said.

“I think when it comes to the Middle East, I think we’re at a very, very dangerous moment and I worry about this interregnum period now and how (Israeli prime minister Benjamin) Netanyahu responds to that.

“President-elect Trump is a person who professes his support for peace. I think it is so important now that the world speaks with one voice in terms of calling out the humanitarian crisis and the loss of civilian life.

“I know President-elect Trump references the Abraham Accords as a moment of success in his last term in office.

“Is that a pathway back towards getting partners in the region around a table to discuss regional stability, but part of that has to be the recognition that Palestine is a state in its own right.”