The President of the United States, Donald Trump, said this Saturday (12) that he would love to see Northern Ireland, administered by the United Kingdom, unite with Ireland, in remarks made during a visit to Dublin that provoked a strong reaction from pro-British unionists in Northern Ireland.
Trump’s comments come weeks after the new UK Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, said that a referendum on Northern Ireland leaving the United Kingdom was “out of the question,” a position that the Prime Minister’s official residence in Downing Street confirmed this Saturday as unchanged.
“Well, I don’t want to cause any trouble, but I’ll tell you: I would love to see unification,” Trump told reporters beside the Irish Prime Minister, Micheal Martin, after their meeting in Dublin. “That will happen eventually… I think it would be fantastic.”
“Now, the United Kingdom will have something to say about this… but I think it would be great,” he added.
Trump later said that “there was no good answer” to the question of Irish unification, but repeated that he thought it would be “a very nice thing.”
Under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, a referendum can only be held at the discretion of the British government. The agreement ended three decades of violence between Irish nationalists who sought a united Ireland and unionists who wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom.
Although polls show a comfortable majority in Northern Ireland in favor of remaining in the United Kingdom, the gap has narrowed slightly since the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union placed unification high on the political agenda.
The leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, the largest party in Northern Ireland advocating the continuation of the union with the United Kingdom, rejected Trump’s statement, saying that unification with Ireland 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 in London, Dublin or Washington,” wrote Gavin Robinson, who has publicly supported Trump in the past, on X.
In Belfast, advocates for Irish unification gave a cautious response.
“I think it’s just to grab attention… I don’t think he cares at all whether there will be a United Ireland or not,” said Eamon Hanna, a supporter of the nationalist SDLP party, which has been a strong critic of Trump’s policies.
Former U.S. presidents, including those with strong Irish ancestry, such as Joe Biden, have taken care to remain neutral on Irish unification. The U.S. government has played a key role in mediating the 1998 peace agreement.
(Reporting by Bo Erickson, Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries, in Dublin; Graham Fahy, in Doonbeg; Amanda Ferguson, in Belfast, and Will James and Sam Tabahriti, in London)
