At times in 2025 it felt like the roof was about to fall in on certain Irish export sectors.
An emboldened Donald Trump was in the White House and his Liberation Day on April 2nd seemed to point to a grim future for parts of Ireland’s globalised economy. He announced swingeing tariffs on a huge number of countries and obscure jurisdictions.
In the months that followed, the European Union engaged in discussions with Trump’s people – arriving at an outline trade agreement last August. The deal, imperfect and rushed, was sold here as the least worst scenario – with a 15 per cent flat tariff rate across the board on EU exports to the United States.
Yet a cursory look at Ireland’s latest economic metrics will reveal that, while there has been disruption, inconvenience and some extra cost, the impact at a macro level has been seemingly minimal.
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“They have added more volatility into the headline figures than anything else,” says Gerard Brady, chief economist with the employer group Ibec.
“We saw the front-loading that went on with exports last year – and then the whiplash effect of pretty weak export numbers in the first half of this year. But when compared to 2024, the numbers are pretty strong and robust.”
Brady says underlying exports from Ireland to the US are looking “okay” – and this has to do with the fact that around three-quarters of them are still exempt from new tariffs.
For specific sectors, however, “it is more challenging”.
Sarah Furno runs the Cashel Blue cheese business in Co Tipperary and says the company has had to work hard to remain competitive and profitable in the US market.
“People are feeling the squeeze,” she says.
Trump’s proposed changes and unpredictable approach have meant the cheesemakers have spent more time tending to their American suppliers and customer base.
“Since the summer of 2025 we have travelled every six months to take part in trade shows, on both the east and west coasts, this has been a great gauge of the temperature of the market,” says Furno.
Cashel, she says, made changes to its route into the American market – one of which was to switch away from the big Irish dairy exporter Ornua to a smaller UK exporter.
“Our Cashel Blue ships every three weeks from Somerset [England] to New Jersey in small volumes,” she says. “There have been no inventory issues, and we have managed to deliver a small price reduction to market”.
Tariffs, Furno says, have been compounded by a range of other new pressures.
She lists food, transport and labour cost inflation. As a result, many cheese counters in the US have been pared back to “pre-cut” and there is less person-to-person contact between retail staff and customers.
Furno says for a brand like Cashel, which trades on its connection to place, “when no one is there to give you a taste, to tell you the story, there’s a big piece missing”.
Consolidation within distribution and ownership have also changed the way in which US retailers buy their products. She cites Amazon’s purchase of high-end grocery chain Whole Foods which has moved “regional purchasing to streamlined national purchasing”.
Another sector that sells itself on a unique connection to place is the Irish whiskey industry.
According to its representative body, the Irish whiskey Association (IWA), there was a 9 per cent reduction in Irish whiskey exports to the US in 2025. Manufacturers, facing significantly reduced profitability in America, have had to diversify away from it.
Irish whiskey exporters have faced a tariff in the USA since April 2025, according to Eoin Ó Catháin, director of the IWA.
“This additional charge means reduced profitability for Irish whiskey exporters, and the longer it remains, the greater the possibility that the price-on-shelf in the USA will rise – directly impacting the US consumer and tourism and hospitality sectors”.
While the industry welcomes the return to the zero rate tariff announced by president Trump on at the end of his recent Irish visit, Ó Catháin says the current 10 per cent rate means the product has not been entirely locked out of the US market.
He notes that for northern members of the IWA, Trump’s side-deal on scotch which he announced after meeting King Charles earlier this year has inadvertently seen them benefit from a new zero per cent rate.
Enterprise Ireland is the state agency tasked with guiding Irish exporters through the morass of changes imposed by the Trump administration – and Aidan McKenna is its regional director for the Americas.
He says that, since April, there appears to be more clarity about what the White House is demanding – but also a realisation that tariffs may outlive this current political regime.
“A lot of the policies that were brought in during the first Trump administration were carried through by Biden,” says McKenna.
“The protectionism against China along with the move to reshore US businesses continued after Trump had left – there were massive financial incentives under Biden to reshore companies. It was the case perhaps that it was more of a carrot approach under Biden – the tariff is more of a stick”.
Irish companies are “very hungry” for information, says McKenna, and the agency is continually employing experts at the likes of PwC and BDO to ensure the most accurate and up-to-date information is available to clients.
He says that many of them are now resigned to the expectation that tariffs are not going to be negotiated away – but certain sectors could still win exemptions, as has been the case with Irish whiskey.
With US inflation running hot, he suggests, anything that can potentially bring down the cost of manufacture could be looked upon favourably.
“There is probably room to lobby and negotiate and get carveouts. There is an opportunity there for Ireland and Irish businesses to try and get some exemptions – things that impact on inflation for consumers in the US.
“Equipment that supports farmers being more productive and helps lower the cost of food – that is an obvious one”.
In Co Monaghan, the large forklift manufacturer Combilift is watching for any sign of possible exemptions.
Its chief executive Martin McVicar, however, is planning on the basis that the current 15 per cent applied to his products is here to stay.
The company has been passing on this additional cost to US consumers in 2026, he says.
“We have been educating our US customers that this is a cost they have to incur,” says McVicar. “They have pretty much accepted that.
“When the tariffs came in originally in April 2025, we shared the tariff costs 50/50 as an interim solution. As it stands from 2026, our customers are taking the full value of the tariff – as a business, we just couldn’t absorb it”.
This hasn’t prevented the business from growing in the US, he says, where it has more than 50 employees on the ground along with its parts distribution centre in North Carolina.
The bigger impact, he says, has come from the various currency devaluations that have occurred since the White House embarked on its tariff policies.
“We export into 85 countries around the world – and since tariffs were introduced a lot of currencies around the world have devalued against the Euro,” he says.
“For example, we are trying to grow the Indian market – but the Indian rupee has devalued 25 per cent against the euro since tariffs started to come into effect.
“Indian exports are affected going into the US – devaluing their currency. The knock-on effect to Combilift is that our products are effectively 25 per cent more expensive going into India”.
The US dollar and Canadian dollar too have depreciated against the Euro over this period.
McVicar says the key to remaining competitive in the US market is to demonstrate the added value that Combilift’s product line can bring.
“For us, the US market is a key market, and we are continuing to invest and grow it,” he says. “The tariffs are not putting us off.”
