{"id":89285,"date":"2025-05-10T05:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T05:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/89285\/"},"modified":"2025-05-10T05:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T05:35:09","slug":"what-does-the-latest-round-of-eu-retaliatory-tariffs-mean-for-ireland-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/89285\/","title":{"rendered":"What does the latest round of EU retaliatory tariffs mean for Ireland? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irish<\/a> seafood business<\/a> The Good Fish Company has ambitious plans to export to the United States<\/a> later this year.<\/p>\n

In March it scooped the best new retail product gong at the Seafood Excellence Awards in Boston for its \u201cAtlantic Salmon with a Guinness sweet honey mustard melt and panko crumb\u201d.<\/p>\n

It finalised a distribution deal for a range of products due on the shelves of US supermarkets in September. <\/p>\n

Then two weeks later Donald Trump announced his \u201cLiberation Day\u201d tariffs.<\/p>\n

These included a levy on European goods that stood at 20 per cent at the time \u2013 though this has since been reduced to 10 per cent, at least during the temporary pause \u2013 and the value of the dollar fell.<\/p>\n

The Good Fish Company\u2019s managing director, Donagh Good, admitted he was left wondering if the planned expansion into the US market was \u201ca big waste of time\u201d.<\/p>\n

Now there is further uncertainty with the European Union\u2019s announcement<\/a> of a list of \u20ac95 billion worth of proposed tariffs on US products, including fish, which would be imposed if trade talks fail. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0US bourbon, aircraft and agricultural products in firing line for further EU tariffsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Bourbon whiskey is on there, a product the Government had successfully lobbied the EU to be excluded from duties previously due to concern over the impact on Irish whiskey producers should the US retaliate.<\/p>\n

Agriculture products including cattle, sheep, vegetables, apricots and nuts are on the countermeasure list, as are fish including lobster, cod and salmon. <\/p>\n

US aircraft manufacturers would also be targeted in the proposed retaliatory tariffs, something that would have a big impact on Ryanair.<\/p>\n

The EU is hoping negotiations with the Trump administration will negate the need for these measures.<\/p>\n

T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris told the D\u00e1il this week he wants to see the list \u201cripped up\u201d as a result of an agreement being reached.<\/p>\n

But should the EU\u2019s threatened countermeasures become necessary it will have a wide-ranging impact on Ireland\u2019s economy, businesses and consumers.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Simon Harris warns of \u2018new challenges\u2019 as EU prepares possible counter measures in US trade disputeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

And it prompts the question, will an aggressive stance from Brussels put the State at a disadvantage?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call it internally a Brexit moment,\u201d said Good of the US tariffs. In common with that previous trade shock, he said, \u201cthe world doesn\u2019t stop turning so we need to just kind of hold the line and it will sort itself out. How long it will take, we don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Good Fish Company, which employs 100 people, invested \u20ac13 million in recent years including to open its new factory outside Cork, in part with an eye to breaking into the US market. <\/p>\n

Good said that market had been an \u201ceasy door to walk through up until around three-four months ago and now it\u2019s getting harder and harder because of the uncertainty\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said that if fish products got caught up in the trade dispute between the EU and US it would \u201cdefinitely curtail our expansion plans\u201d. <\/p>\n

Irish fish exports to the US are a small part of the overall total of almost \u20ac600 million in fish sent worldwide last year. <\/p>\n

\"DonaghDonagh Good with his dad Denis Good, who founded The Good Fish Company <\/p>\n

Brendan Byrne, chief executive of the Irish Fish Processors and Exporters Association, argued that the agri-food industry, including the fish sector, \u201cshould have been left off any list of reciprocal tariffs\u201d.<\/p>\n

He expressed hope that the Government would lobby Brussels for fish products to be removed from the list.<\/p>\n

\n

Is EU retaliation ideal from an Irish perspective? Probably not but then to be part of a bigger bloc also brings protections in other ways as well<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Dan O’Brien<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He said Irish fish exports to the US were a \u201csmall niche market\u201d but should the US retaliate against EU countermeasures it \u201cwill have consequences for processors that have built up this market\u201d.<\/p>\n

Byrne put it in a broader context, saying that \u201cthe reality is the Irish fishing sector has been very hard hit by successive EU policies, particularly post-Brexit\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not going to help,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On the question of whether the approach taken by Brussels puts Dublin at a disadvantage, economist Dan O\u2019Brien suggested that if the Republic had its own independent trade policy, it would \u201ctake a position more akin to the UK or South Korea, where it wouldn\u2019t retaliate\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut given the EU\u2019s relative strength towards the US there is a view that Europe will retaliate,\u201d said O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that ideal from an Irish perspective? Probably not but then to be part of a bigger bloc also brings protections in other ways as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

There will be relief in Government that pharmaceuticals have not been targeted by the European Commission as part of the proposed countermeasures.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien, chief economist with the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), said that \u201cgiven that the [pharmaceutical] industry is such a big manufacturer here \u2013 it\u2019s the biggest exporter by far \u2013 that\u2019s a positive\u201d.<\/p>\n

The \u201cdownside\u201d of the proposed EU measures \u201cobviously, is for Irish consumers. New taxes on products that we buy are not good\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien expressed pessimism about the chances of EU-US negotiations, saying: \u201cThe US is not going to take away the 10 per cent tariff that\u2019s already been imposed, so the EU will go ahead [with countermeasures]\u201d.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week the Department of Finance\u2019s annual progress report suggested that as many as 25,000 fewer jobs would be created in the Republic in the absence of an EU deal with the US to limit the impact of tariffs.<\/p>\n

It stated that if the current 10 per cent tariff on US imports from the EU remained in place, growth in the State\u2019s domestic economy would be expected to slow to 2 per cent this year and to 1.75 per cent in 2026 \u2013 a cumulative downward revision to growth of 1.5 per cent over two years.<\/p>\n

Irish Government ministers are still pinning much of their hopes on the talks with the Trump administration being successful.<\/p>\n

They also take solace in the consultation period on EU countermeasures what will allow EU member states to lobby Brussels on individual measures into June, with a number of ministers highlighting this in recent days.<\/p>\n

Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon told the Irish Times that he still hoped the commission could be persuaded to take bourbon, spirits and wine off the list. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe big point around bourbon is your countermeasure list should in reality hurt them more than it hurts us. But the truth is we export a lot more Irish whiskey than import bourbon into Europe and the same would be the case for French Cognac and others,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cBy putting bourbon on the list, you put our drinks industry in the firing line for countermeasures.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the Government would seek to \u201clook after\u201d the fisheries sector and \u201cmake the case\u201d for it as well.<\/p>\n

Heydon said the Government would be explaining to EU trade commissioner Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d and others \u201cthe impact that measures on the list will have on Ireland, mindful of the fact that they do have to come up with a list that\u2019s \u20ac95 billion, and that\u2019s not simple to do\u201d.<\/p>\n

At the same time part of the Government\u2019s response to the threat posed by US tariffs is efforts to help Irish companies diversify their international markets. <\/p>\n

Heydon will go on a trade mission to Japan and South Korea next month where he will look to promote the Irish agri-food sector.<\/p>\n

He disputed the suggestion that the Commission\u2018s approach has been aggressive, instead characterising it as \u201cvery responsible\u201d and \u201cmeasured in the face of serious provocation\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Minister gave the example of car manufacturing countries such as Germany and Slovakia which have been hurt by the 25 per cent US tariffs on automobiles and steel and aluminium, but said the EU response has been \u201ccalm\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is Brexit mark II,\u201d said Heydon. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognise Europe doesn\u2019t want to be in this position and Ireland\u2019s strength is very much at the heart of an EU trading bloc, a really important single market where we have a disproportionately loud voice for the size of our population.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish seafood business The Good Fish Company has ambitious plans to export to the United States later this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[41936,32,2000,14008,299,5187,2557,1699,2612],"class_list":{"0":"post-89285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-cork","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-eu-us-trade","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-commission","15":"tag-european-union","16":"tag-us-tariffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}