Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke said US tactics on Greenland were effectively “tearing apart” the EU-US trade deal agreed in July.
He claimed Donald Trump’s latest tariff threats were “coercive” and had cast a “shadow” over transatlantic trade, adding yet more “uncertainty” for firms.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Burke urged the US to recommit to the EU-US trade deal agreed in Scotland last summer, which applied a 15 per cent tariff to most EU exports to the US.
“We need heads around the table. We need to look at the issues the US has in relation to security, in relation to Greenland,” he said, noting that Washington had a long-standing agreement with Denmark allowing it to put military bases on the Arctic island.
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US motivations around Greenland were “unclear,” he claimed.
“But we don’t want to go down the road of significant interventions by the EU because that will bring a tit-for-tat trade war and no one will win,” Mr Burke said.
Ireland, as a small, open economy, would be “very exposed” to such an event.
Mr Burke was in Davos to bang the drum for investment in Ireland. He was scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with representatives from Johnson & Johnson, Meta, ServiceNow and Mars.
He said he was there to “articulate the value proposition of the Irish economy”.
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Mr Burke said the Government’s recently revised R&D (research and development) tax credit was being received positively by companies investing, and interested in investing, in Ireland.
“We can say to the multinational sector that for every euro you invest in research, development and innovation, we’ll meet you and give you 50 cent back ... that really is going down well with the sector,” he said.
As part of Ireland’s upcoming EU presidency, Mr Burke said the Irish Government would drive “the simplification agenda” to cut the red tape faced by firms operating in Europe.
Championing “simpler, lighter, faster” regulation was key to making the bloc more competitive, he said.
[ Macron accuses US of trying to ‘subordinate’ EuropeOpens in new window ]
Ireland would hold European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s “feet to the fire” on her pledge to streamline the bloc’s complex rule book, he said.
The EU’s proposed “Omnibus” legislation, now before the Commission, promises to reduce the administrative burden faced by businesses by 25 per cent, potentially saving €37 billion in the process.
On reports that Ireland was losing out on investment to other jurisdictions because of access to electricity and infrastructure, Mr Burke insisted the Government was addressing the issue, highlighting the Commission for Regulation of Utilities’ recently published position on connections for large-energy users and the Government’s enhanced €18.9 billion capital spend on energy infrastructure.
He also noted that there was a pipeline of onshore, solar and offshore wind energy which would boost the State’s energy capacity.
On Wednesday, the IDA will host its annual dinner at the Davos forum, a big set-piece event for the agency to highlight Ireland’s investment credentials.
Typically up to 50 top executives attend the dinner. In 2024, the then taoiseach Leo Varadkar sat beside OpenAI’s Sam Altman.
But US chief executives are said to sensitive about flagging their offshore operations in the midst of Trump’s nativist agenda and the IDA’s invite list this year has been kept under wraps.
