26th September 2021
The Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Leo Varadkar TD will today (Sunday, 26 September) travel to Washington DC to take part in a number of high-level meetings related to commerce and trade, including meeting with US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Ambassador Katherine Tai, United States Trade Representative.
The Tánaiste said:
“Trade will be crucial in helping us recover and build better than before once the pandemic is over. Like the last economic crisis, it will be our attractiveness as a place to invest, our reputation and our reliability that will help us reach full employment.
Ireland has always had a unique relationship with the United States and I’m looking forward to visiting again after such a long time. This is my first time visiting as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment and also the first time post-Brexit, so there is plenty to discuss and I look forward to meeting with my counterparts and business groups.”
The Tánaiste will take part in a roundtable meeting with the US Chamber of Commerce and speak at an event, ‘Twin Transitions: Ireland and the Transatlantic Economic Recovery’ at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
He will hold bilateral meetings with Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Ambassador Katherine Tai, discussing Covid and Brexit challenges, trade and the upcoming Trade and Technology Council meeting between the EU and US.
This engagement is taking place ahead of that Council meeting, which is seen as an important step in reforging the Atlantic alliance between the US and Europe. Ireland is now the largest English-speaking Member State in the EU, post-Brexit.
Bilateral trade
Latest figures show that there are 900 US companies in Ireland employing 180,000 people.
The Tánaiste said:
“Ireland will continue to be a valued partner for the many US businesses who choose us as their second home. Especially in today’s highly competitive international environment, we will never take for granted investment and will carry on doing all we can to win new investments and maintain those we have.”
“While Ireland is widely known as a significant European hub for US foreign direct investment, investment flows across the North Atlantic are not all one way.
The United States has always been an important market for Irish companies. And today, almost 1,000 companies of Irish origin employ 110,000 people in the US across all 50 states. This makes Ireland the 9th largest source of foreign direct investment into the US, a remarkable achievement for a country and economy approximately 1/70th the size of the US.”
ENDS
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