Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The reality of what we see across the world in the past week or so is an act of self-sabotage by the American President on his own people. That is really the centre of all of this. At the end of it, we recognise that the trade barriers or the trade tariffs being put in place are going to damage the American economy and ordinary American citizens hugely. We all hope that will rebound back and bring a change in direction by the American Administration. The imposition of 20% tariffs by the US on EU exports, however, comes into effect today. It is damaging Ireland. It will damage Irish agriculture and our food and drinks industry. At the moment, Ireland exports almost one quarter of the butter we make in this country to America. Some 6% of cheese produced in Ireland goes to the US and more than €1 billion of Irish whiskey and other products in that industry go to the US. The tariffs, therefore, are going to have an impact, particularly on our dairy and whiskey industries in Ireland. One of those whiskey industries is the Shed Distillery in Drumshanbo in County Leitrim, which is the producer of the famous Drumshanbo Gunpowder Gin and other whiskey products. It is very worried about the amount of its product that is on its way to the US at the moment. It is not sure what is going to happen. There are real implications for all of this.

While the EU is not going to up the ante by imposing reciprocal tariffs on US dairy and whiskey, the fact remains that 20% tariffs on Irish dairy, whiskey and any other Irish food export to the US are in place as of today. Just because the EU has not decided to impose those tariffs does not mean Trump will not increase the tariffs further. It can happen even without Ireland or the EU putting any reciprocal tariffs in place.

The problem we have seen in the global markets in the past week is the uncertainty of what Trump will do next. Nobody knows what he is going to do. He has indicated that there will be more tariffs and has signalled the pharmaceutical sector over the past 24 hours. That would be hugely problematic in my area where we have some pharmaceutical and medical device companies. They are big employers and very important to the economy.

In documents published by the US Administration on barriers to international trade, one of the issues mentioned was the introduction of health warning labels on alcohol sold in Ireland. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, announced at the weekend that he was considering scraping those health warnings. That is a difficult thing to understand. How can it be that something the Government told us was a priority and an important health initiative, and which had cross-party support in the Dáil, is something we should no longer do because the US Administration has said it does not like it?

Other issues raised by the US were a ban on American meat produced with growth hormones and our regulations when it comes to pesticides and fertilisers. The US also raised concern on delays in the EU approving genetically modified crops. We cannot let our animal welfare, food safety and agriculture regulations be used as a bargaining chip during negotiations on tariffs. The EU has probably the highest level of animal welfare and food safety standards in the world. As such, we produce products of the highest standard in the world. We already seen the EU agree to the importation of South American beef in the Mercosur trade deal, whose animal welfare standards are well below those of Irish farmers and farmers in the EU. This cannot be allowed to happen again.

It is concerning the Irish Government failed to attend a meeting of EU countries last week where concern and opposition were voiced to the Mercosur trade deal. So much for this Government standing up for the interests of Irish farmers. Hopefully, it will support the proposals inserting an emergency break into the Mercosur deal for agricultural imports, a mechanism that could be triggered to restrict imports to EU markets if EU markets are destabilised. It is concerning the Government failed to attend that meeting. I just hope it does not take the same lackadaisical attitude when it comes to standing up for Irish interests in negotiations on tariffs.

We all know tariffs are bad for business and the only way to ultimately resolve this is through negotiation and dialogue. The number one priority for Ireland is to protect the Irish economy and Irish jobs and to limit the damage and risk to our consumers. While tariffs will affect the economy here, we still need to continue to invest in our housing, healthcare, health services and infrastructure. The Government cannot use these tariffs and this global trade war as an excuse to abandon the necessary infrastructure promises that were made in the past.

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