Ireland can address a “tremendous” trade imbalance with the US by buying American liquified natural gas (LNG), President Donald Trump has said.
Mr Trump said Ireland had “better do something” to bring the trade deficit down.
Speaking at the Friends of Ireland Luncheon for St Patrick’s Day at the US Capitol Building, Mr Trump said: “We have a tremendous deficit, by the way. I looked at the numbers.
“You guys are much better business people than our past politicians.”
Turning to Taoiseach Micheal Martin, he added: “We have to talk about that deficit – are we allowed to talk about that today?”
Mr Trump referenced the more than six billion dollars being invested into the US by Irish companies, before adding: “And I’m hopeful that we’ll soon reach a deal to sell American liquefied natural gas – and that’ll bring down your deficit a lot – so I think you have to make this deal with us, you better do something.
“But these companies are going to be fuelling your homes and factories and all of the other things.
“We got a lot of, we have a lot of energy in this country. We have more than anybody, most energy of any country in the world, by far.
“So we want to sell a little to you, and the deficit will come down, down, down, and everybody’s going to be happy.
“So you gotta buy a lot of our stuff.”
Earlier, Mr Martin had a successful encounter with Trump in an Oval Office meeting.
He defended the EU and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer from Trump attacks.
The 40-minute meeting in the Oval Office involved Mr Trump responding to Irish President Catherine Connolly’s criticism of US-Israeli attacks on Iran by saying the world “should be thankful” for the intervention.
And he referred to the Irish president as “he”.
When asked to respond to comments by President Connolly, Mr Trump said: “He’s lucky I exist, that’s all I can say. (sic)
“Because if you’re going to allow countries that are sick and demented – and they are demented – to have nuclear weapons, everybody in the whole world should be very thankful.”
Mr Martin defended Sir Keir by telling Mr Trump he “had the capacity” to engage with the British leader and other European leaders.
He said the relationship between Europe and the US is “very, very important”, and previous issues between the EU and the US last year, where the threat of a tariff war loomed for months, had been resolved.
“I think we can get landing zone again,” Mr Martin said.
“Keir Starmer has done a lot to reset the Irish-British relationship, I just want to put that on the record.
“But I do believe that he’s a very earnest, sound person (which) you have a capacity to get on with, you’ve got on with him before.
“You’ve got on with other European leaders as well and I think you have that capacity again.”