Ireland’s Micheal Martin and Trump in awkward St Patrick’s Day exchange

The leaders’ sit-down took place at the Oval Office on Tuesday, on a day dominated by the resignation of US counterterrorism chief Joe Kent over the US and Israel’s war on Iran and Trump’s tirade against NATO allies refusing to get on board with military action in the blocked Strait of Hormuz.

The 65-year-old taoiseach – Irish for prime minister – was under political pressure to talk tough to Trump about the war on Iran. But as the Irish Times newspaper noted, he remained “effectively mute” for the first 20 minutes as the US president held forth on a range of grievances, including the resignation of Kent, director of the US National Counterterrorism Center.

Noting Trump’s accusation that NATO had made a “foolish mistake” by not backing the US, the Irish prime minister, whose country is not a NATO member, tried a diplomatic approach.

“I’m sure European leaders and the US administration will engage, and hopefully, we can get a landing zone,” he said, appearing to mean a common ground.

Then, Trump went on to complain that while the US had helped with Ukraine, “they don’t help with Iran”, going on to unload a lengthy list of grievances against Iranian leaders, whom he called “the worst people going back to Hitler”, and Europe.

Ireland, which joined South Africa’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) case accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, has taken a similarly robust stance on Iran. Trump’s reaction to Irish President Catherine Connolly’s remarks that the US-Israel war against Iran was illegal under international law was, therefore, a matter of some interest.

Asked what he thought about Connolly’s comments, Trump appeared not to realise that the Irish president is a woman. “Look, he’s lucky I exist,” he said.

Another thorny moment came when Trump criticised the United Kingdom’s Starmer for failing to help him on Iran.

“I do believe that he’s a very earnest, sound person,” Martin said. “We think you have a capacity to get on with [him]; you’ve got on with him before.”

When Trump returned to a favourite remark on Starmer, pointing to a bust of British wartime leader Winston Churchill and saying Starmer was “no Winston Churchill”, Martin gently pointed out the former leader’s controversial role during Ireland’s war of independence from Britain.

“In Ireland, it was kind of a different perspective,” he chuckled, touching Trump on the arm. “He created his own bit of difficulties for us.”

In Ireland, opposition politicians criticised Martin’s passivity, suggesting that he had missed an opportunity to call out US and Israeli actions in Iran.

“The Taoiseach needed to be very clear with the US administration on the primacy of international law, and how US actions have breached this. The Taoiseach chose not to take this opportunity to state this publicly,” said Sinn Féin lawmaker Donnchadh O Laoghaire, according to The Irish Times.

However, as the newspaper noted, the Irish prime minister’s polite but firm approach also demonstrated “an ability to gently deflect and contradict in a conversational manner”.