Shamrock and smiles would quickly wilt in heat of a trade war

AS BEFITS St Patrick’s Day gatherings, even in Washington, a Taoiseach can expect a welcome on the mat. Yet with the first salvoes in a transatlantic trade war fired by President Donald Trump, and given his frequent criticism of Ireland’s tax regime, Leo Varadkar could have been expecting more of a carpeting.

As it turned out Mr Trump was in exuberant, if somewhat puzzling, form. What were we to make of the comment that the world’s most powerful leader would be discussing “military, trade and cyber” with the leader of a resolutely neutral country?

And at another point he spoke of how Northern Ireland had two very “interesting borders”. Historically we have had difficulty enough in managing one.

Mr Varadkar even had an enigmatic moment of his own. He raised a few eyebrows with his surprise confession that as tourism minister he once intervened in a planning decision on behalf of Mr Trump.

Overall, the Taoiseach felt confident Mr Trump had a good understanding of how a “hard Border” might affect Ireland and was sympathetic to helping frame a solution.

And if the art of diplomacy is getting the other side to give you what you want without shouting, then this was a reasonably successful outing for Mr Varadkar.

Far from chastising the country for our corporation tax, Mr Trump went so far as to say: “They got those taxes so low... you are a tough one to compete with, but congratulations.”

As expected, the president has accepted an invitation to come here. But, we ought not to get overly carried away with all the bonhomie.

There are outstanding issues to be tackled. It might be unrealistic to imagine that they could have been tied up neatly within 40 minutes. And there is not a country in the world that would not envy the access and attention Ireland gets on Capitol Hill once a year.

After last year’s lunch, Mr Trump was effusive about then Taoiseach Enda Kenny, describing him as his “new friend” and a “great guy”. Mr Varadkar had to be content with being a “very popular prime minister of Ireland.”

THE Irish-American comedian George Carlin acerbically noted the difference between fantasy and reality in the US: “That’s why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.” Some 50,000 Irish Americans have lost a lot of sleep over their undocumented status thanks to Mr Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown.

Yet according to Mr Varadkar the president has signalled some readiness for a deal. “There was support and a good degree of enthusiasm from the administration to work on a solution for the thousands of undocumented Irish that are here but are hard-working, taxpaying people who are very loyal to America,” he added.

It is heartening Mr Trump believes the relationship is “outstanding and getting better”.

But it must be kept in mind few countries would be hit as hard as Ireland should Mr Trump follow through on his threat to plunge the world into a no-holds barred tariff war.

A showdown with the EU would place our open economy on the front line. Last year, €33bn in goods were shipped to the US and the value of services stood at €15bn in 2016.

A tit-for-tat trade retaliation between the EU and US would be a disaster – and no amount of shamrock could shield us from such a reality.