Sharon Keogan (Independent)

The Minister is very welcome. I will jump right to the point. The most important issue facing our national economic outlook is the tariffs and the looming trade war between and decoupling of the US and the EU. However, first let us stand aside for a moment from specific governments, leaders and politicians shaping the relationship between the EU and the US. Let us stand aside from partisan considerations of their ideologies, histories and even personalities. Regardless of who is in power, certain considerations remain the same. In many nations through elections, old parties are swept out of power and new ones are brought in, but the fundamental geopolitical and economic interests of those nations remain unchanged. In geopolitics, for example, the current US competition with China for power and influence did not begin with Trump. It began 13 years ago under Barack Obama’s Administration, with his pivot to east Asia. Through the different administrations, though they confronted the issue with varying levels of intensity, this same policy has continued under both Trump and Biden. It is the same with economics. When Trump first announced his policy of a trade war with China, he was met with disbelief and laughter. Within the decade we now have the EU talking about the need to decouple from the Chinese market. When Trump announced his initial intention to have a trade war with Europe, it was met with exasperation and disbelief. The thinking was that they were the mad decisions of a madman. Yet, only three years ago, when the US was under the Biden Administration, which was supposed to signal a return to the norm, the EU once again found itself facing a potential trade war in response to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which would have advantaged US companies with US state aid. The act is still in force.

That was all before we began to seriously deal with threat to our economy from the growing wave of protectionism. We have to throw out this deeply unserious mindset that prevails among too many in this House, in the Civil Service and in the Government, a childish mindset that assumes the tariffs and protectionism are just a bad dream and that, soon enough, we will all wake up and go back to the promises we were given in the nineties of global free trade, world peace and us all living happily ever after. Many in the EU are already embracing the mindset. The long-term economic interests of the US to onshore its industry and keep as much manufacturing as domestic as possible will not change. In this situation, Europe can only be competition and Europe is adjusting accordingly. Ireland can even stand to benefit from the coming circumstances, but we must first see the reality for what it is.

If we are to navigate this new economic reality we must stop acting like passengers and start acting like a nation with agency. Ireland is uniquely positioned to become a middleman between the great trading blocs, but to do that we must stop approaching Brussels on bended knee. Let us take Mercusor, for example. We could not even bring ourselves to signal opposition to a deal that would flood our markets with beef from countries with lower environmental and labour standards. Why? Because we are afraid of offending the Commission. That is not diplomacy; that is submission. We must also stop letting fear dictate our foreign policy. Taiwan is a global leader in semiconductor manufacturing, chips that power everything and which our island is uniquely placed to manufacture, yet we will not even hear them out or consider co-operation for fear of upsetting Beijing. That is not neutrality; that is cowardice.

If we want to be a serious player in the global economy, we must also invest in our people, which means real, targeted education in the technologies that will define the next century: artificial intelligence, quantum computing and advanced manufacturing. It means facilitating not just more degrees but the right ones; not just more funding but smarter funding. We need to stop pretending the world is going back to the way it was. It is not. The EU and US are adjusting and, if we do not adjust, we will be left behind. Let us be clear, strategic and, above all, let us be sovereign.