![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2266400485.jpg?w=2048\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Ireland\u2019s Prime Minister, or Taoiseach, Miche\u00e1l Martin is expected to unveil more than $6 billion in deals Wednesday when he meets with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington. But the usual St. Patrick\u2019s Day festivities will no doubt be dampened by the Iran war and lingering tensions over trade, tariffs, and Irish policies that the White House has called a \u201ctax scam\u201d for U.S. companies.<\/p>\n
Few understand the challenges better than Michael Lohan. As CEO of IDA Ireland, the nation\u2019s foreign direct investment agency, Lohan is charged with attracting companies to a country that has long relied heavily on U.S. capital and companies. \u201cYou know, Ireland is closer to Boston today than Berlin,\u201d says Lohan, repeating a long-held trope about its economic similarities to the U.S. in terms of taxes, talent, and ease of doing business. (Technically, Boston is almost three times as far as Berlin.) \u201cLast year was a record year for FDI investment in Ireland\u2014against the backdrop of everything that was happening\u2014and 65% of that investment came from U.S. multinationals.\u201d<\/p>\n
That flow of capital is not viewed as a good thing by Trump, who accused Ireland of \u201ctaking our pharmaceutical companies\u201d during last year\u2019s St. Patrick\u2019s Day meeting. While his pressure on U.S. companies to double down at home is being heard\u2013U.S. FDI to Ireland dropped 20% in 2024 to $467 billion\u2013America remains the country\u2019s largest investor. Lohan\u2019s job is to attract more of that capital by \u201ctelling the story of Ireland\u201d as a place to get talent, agility and easy access to the 27 member states of the European Union.<\/p>\n
Pharma-fueled trade surplus<\/p>\n
Ireland has proven to be a desirable place to book profits and pay taxes. The country\u2019s 12.5% corporate income tax rate, and prior tax benefits for companies like Apple, have generated both investment and unwanted attention. Among other things, Apple and Microsoft\u2019s intellectual-property rights are held in Irish subsidiaries that collect royalties from elsewhere. Pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly manufacture key ingredients of blockbuster drugs like Mounjaro and Zepbound on the emerald isle for the same reason, shipping those drugs to U.S. consumers and booking the revenue in Ireland.<\/p>\n
Ireland\u2019s budget watchdog says three U.S. companies accounted for almost half of the country\u2019s corporate tax revenues last year. Although unnamed in the report, they\u2019re known to be Apple, Lilly, and Microsoft. Lilly, for one, paid $6.6 billion in tax to Ireland in 2025, about double what it paid in the U.S.\u2014a country with 65 times the population and the bulk of its customers. With 4,000 employees in Ireland, Lilly\u2019s workforce is also less than a fifth the size of its U.S. operations. Pharmaceutical sales helped Ireland\u2019s exports of goods to the U.S. grow 52% last year to about $132 billion, more than doubling the goods trade surplus to $114.2 billion. (Trade in services between the two countries is essentially the opposite, with Ireland buying more than it sells.)<\/p>\n
One man\u2019s trade surplus is another man\u2019s trade deficit, especially if that man is Donald Trump. The U.S. President has paid particular attention to physical goods when it comes to trade flows, and has called out Big Pharma for rising drug costs. Even with the U.S. now at war, Ireland\u2019s reputation as a corporate tax haven is unlikely to escape attention during the White House visit.<\/p>\n
That may be why the prime minister, much like his IDA emissary Lohan, has shifted the emphasis from inbound investment to money flowing the other way. Lohan talks about how Ireland invested a historic $389 billion in the U.S. in 2024, making it America\u2019s fifth largest source of FDI. On a per-capita basis, the nation of 5.4 million claims to be number one. \u201cThe U.S. continues to be the most innovative economy in the world. It continues to be where capital is readily available and supportive,\u201d says Lohan. \u201cNone of those things have really changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
What has changed, of course, is Trump\u2019s focus on \u201cAmerica First,\u201d which is why Martin is expected to present $6.1 billion in new Irish investments to the U.S. alongside the traditional bowl of shamrocks. While nurturing European alliances is also not a priority for the White House, Trump\u2019s calls for NATO and Europe to step up in protecting the Iran-controlled Strait of Hormuz could occupy much of Martin\u2019s discussions with Trump. Ireland will begin a six-month stint in holding the presidency of the Council of the European Union in July, which will give it a central role in E.U. decision making.<\/p>\n
Martin may want to talk trade this time as the war with Iran is an issue that few leaders want to tackle in public, especially during a White House press conference. IDA\u2019s Lohan is also not oblivious to the fact that consumer sentiment in Ireland is decidedly mixed when it comes to Trump, tariffs, and the tech giants that have raised the cost of housing while putting pressure on the energy grid at home. And Europe\u2019s approach to tech innovation is decidedly different than what\u2019s coming out of D.C.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to push the innovation and technology agenda, but we have to do it safely and ethically,\u201d said Lohan.\u00a0And that applies to all potential investors, including China.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to see a fair, level playing pitch between China and its counterparts, with Ireland being part of that,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I do think we can\u2019t turn our back on what is a very significant economy where there is a significant amount of innovation.\u201d <\/p>\n
A \u20ac13 billion tax windfall does little to alleviate Ireland\u2019s economic dilemma.The Fortune 500 Innovation Forum will convene Fortune 500 executives, U.S. policy officials, top founders, and thought leaders to help define what\u2019s next for the American economy, Nov. 16-17 in Detroit. Apply here.
\n
#Ireland #courts #U.S #companies #taoiseach #brings #deals #Trump #Patricks #Day<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ireland\u2019s Prime Minister, or Taoiseach, Miche\u00e1l Martin is expected to unveil more than $6 billion…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[3534,1386,3713,3716,437,518,1381,3711,3712,3715,3714,721,722],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1612"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}