“I would like to see a united Ireland.” Donald Trump’s weekend on the Emerald Isle starts with a bang: the American president, speaking to journalists after meeting Prime Minister Micheal Martin, touches on an extremely delicate and still controversial topic, which immediately puts him at odds not only with the unionists of Northern Ireland but also with the British prime minister. A few weeks ago, Andy Burnham had stated that a referendum for Belfast’s divorce from the United Kingdom was not on the agenda, a position that – Downing Street reiterated yesterday – has not changed.
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According to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, a consultation could be held at the discretion of the British government only if it emerged that a majority of the Northern Irish population favored reunification, while so far polls show that only a minority supports it.
The leader of the largest unionist party in Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionist Party, rejected Trump’s words, stating that reunification would lead to the “destruction of our country.” “The constitutional future of Northern Ireland will be decided by the people of Northern Ireland, not by comments coming from London, Dublin, or Washington,” Gavin Robinson wrote on X.
U.S. presidents, including those with Irish origins like Joe Biden, have always sought to maintain a neutral position on the issue of Irish unification. The U.S. government also played a key role in mediating the 1998 peace agreement.
On the first day of the visit – also marked by a protest march in Dublin as Trump left the capital to reach his Doonbeg golf resort in County Clare – the U.S. president made another statement on a sensitive topic for London: he said he could resolve the dispute between Argentina and Great Britain over the Falkland Islands, if requested, and expressed doubts about the British government’s ability to deploy resources to defend such a distant territory if necessary.
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