Trump and Irish leader celebrate their countries’ close ties but differences over Brexit are evident
By Anne Gearan Anne Gearan White House reporter Email Bio Follow March 14 at 6:46 PM President Trump, perhaps not wanting to spoil the chummy mood of the annual St. Patrick’s Day-themed visit, announced at the start of his meetings with the Irish prime minister Thursday that he was not going to comment on Brexit, on which he and his guest vigorously disagree.
“It’s an enormous pleasure for Ireland, a small country, to have this annual meeting on account of St. Patrick’s Day, and to have a chance to make even closer and tighter the bonds between the United States and Ireland,” Varadkar told Trump. “Many of the traditions this president violates pertain to political etiquette and expectations,” said Kathleen Costello-Sullivan, a historian at Le Moyne College. “In contrast, he seems to enjoy the kinds of cultural trappings and traditions that come with the office.”
Ireland is at the center of the practical discussion of how Britain would separate itself from the European Union and its open movement of goods and people because the only affected land border runs between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Irish leaders say a new formal border would put profitable commerce at risk and invoke the ghosts of the bloody conflicts in Northern Ireland known as the Irish Troubles.
Trump also got in a plug for his Irish golf course and repeated an embroidered story about having predicted the surprise outcome of the 2016 British Brexit referendum.
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