Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----than that of the leaders in Congress, who are more for free trade and free enterprise. I very much gave my view that I would prefer for us to have a trade deal rather than a trade war and that we should have a free trade agreement, FTA, between the EU and the United States. President Trump did not dismiss this out of hand; he was actually quite open to it. This was one of the takeaways from the meeting that surprised me.

I thought he would be against that but he was not. He had a particular concern about trade deficits with countries such as Germany and China and a particular concern about the fact the EU imposes higher tariffs on cars than the US imposes on the EU. I suggested the best way to resolve these issues is not tit-for-tat tariffs and restrictions but engagement in a free trade agreement. That was not dismissed out of hand and I thought it would have been. The exemption for steel and aluminium is temporary and applies until May. In that period, there will be engagement between the EU and US on some grievances the US has in respect of trade practices. We will see what happens after that. Obviously the EU is looking for a permanent exemption and not one that ends in May.

On the Irish undocumented, Deputy Deasy is leading up that project. In the absence of an overall solution and comprehensive immigration reform in the United States, we are seeking a bilateral solution for Ireland. There were previous models in the past, and people will know about the various eponymous visa programmes that existed. There is also Australia, which has an E-3 visa, a certain number of which are given every year. What we are working on is a proposal whereby a certain number of visas would be made available to Irish people who are undocumented in the US, perhaps 2,000 or 3,000 a year for three years or 5,000 for two years, with a total of 10,000 or 15,000. In return for this we would do something similar here, given the large number of US citizens who now live in Ireland and the large number who retire to Ireland. There are certain restrictions on them at present. It is very much something we could do that would be mutual. This was very well received by the President, and he directed his staff to work with my staff to progress it. It would, of course, require congressional approval and that could pose a difficulty given that many members of Congress, even though they are very supportive of doing something for the Irish undocumented-----

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