Tom Brabazon (Dublin Bay North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is no justification for the tariffs being imposed, except to pull the wealth generation of multinational corporations from Ireland, Europe and other parts of the world back to the US. However, that does not recognise that these companies are in fact multinational by nature and by location, often having manufacturing, research and development, corporate headquarters, administration and tax bases in different places around the world, in many cases with good reason.

Ireland should be confident going forward that we have an excellent level of graduates, support trades and access to one of the largest markets in the world, the EU of 450 million people.

A number of multinational pharma companies operate in my constituency of Dublin Bay North. They offer reasonably good employment to a good number of employees. The infrastructure out of which some of them operate is extremely complex and it would probably not be either possible or desirable to move them stateside. To do so would mean losing the talented workforce and shipping plant from Europe to the United States. It would also mean losing out on access to the European market. In the meantime, there would be a significant increase in the cost of delivery of pharma products to the consumer, stateside. The increased cost to the average American citizen, with the devaluing of shares and stock prices, would have a devastating effect. There will no doubt be pushback by the American public against these tariffs when they feel the full force of their negative impact. We have already seen some of this pushback commence. This is another reason to be hopeful. A further reason to be hopeful is that corporate planners know that there are three years and nine months left in Donald Trump's presidency. By the time his term is up and he leaves office, a lot of transatlantic transfers will not have taken place. My hope is that corporate decision-makers might well knuckle down for the balance of the three years of tariffs and endeavour to ride out the storm on the basis that the tariffs may well be reversed by a more reasonable and sensible incoming president after President Trump.

The last time such an experiment took place on a global scale we had the Great Depression. It is not even 100 years later, and here we are on the precipice of repeating history again. I hope the existence of a bigger trading bloc in the EU will help to save us from the worst excesses of this economic foolishness. I am hopeful that we may be insulated from the worst parts of President Trump's tariffs.

Potentially, there are between 700 million and 1 billion people in countries around the world living below the poverty line who would find it desirable to migrate for economic reasons before the tariffs take effect. These countries will no doubt be plunged into a dreadful level of impoverishment, particularly in the southern hemisphere. The tariffs will swell the number of people who desire to move for economic reasons. President Trump may well have to build his famous wall to stem the tide of migration. Unless sense prevails, migrants may well be climbing over his wall and tunnelling under it. President Trump must be careful what he wishes for.

We, in Ireland, must hold the line and work with our European partners while wearing our blue and green jerseys. This is where I differ from my colleague who just spoke. We must aim to ride out the storm by fully co-operating with our European partners and availing of every opportunity to negotiate with President Trump's Administration. We cannot underestimate the problems with the world economy if there is no negotiation. We must ensure we use everything in our armoury to bring President Trump and his Administration to the table to discuss these matters.

5 o’clock

Our world is turbulent at present. It is a world in which we have war in the Middle East between Palestine and Israel, civil wars in Syria and Yemen and the war between Russia and Ukraine as well as war in other parts of the world. This could be the worst time ever to consider imposing tariffs which will further destabilise our global village. Tariffs are simply counterproductive. They disrupt deeply integrated transatlantic supply chains and put at risk the entire global economy and the welfare of citizens on both sides of the Atlantic and all around the globe. It is not too late for President Trump to do the right thing.

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