President Trump flew into Ireland and immediately blundered into the centuries-old Irish Question, stating that Brexit would be a benefit for the country’s border “wall” that separates the 26 counties of the Irish Republic from the six in Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom.
Having completed a successful trip to the U.K., where Brexit remains the dominant political issue, the president arrived at Shannon Airport on Wednesday to meet the Irish prime minster, Leo Varadkar. He was standing beside Trump as the president addressed waiting reporters.
“Probably you’ll ask me about Brexit because I just left some very good people who are very involved with Brexit, as you know,” Trump said. “And I think it will all work out very well, and also for you with your wall, your border.
“I mean, we have a border situation in the United States, and you have one over here. But I hear it’s going to work out very well here.”
Varadkar did not miss a beat, adding, “I think one thing we want to avoid, of course, is a wall or border between us.”
Northern Ireland, one of the four constituent parts of the U.K. along with England, Scotland, and Wales, became a separate legal entity in 1921, following a bloody Irish war of independence. Its six counties were chosen to remain under British rule because they contained a majority of Protestants, who looked to London rather than Dublin.
It has been Irish government policy to erase the border and unite the island of Ireland ever since. Irish republicans fought a guerrilla war from 1969 to end “partition” and erase the border.
In modern times, Irish and British policy has been to make the border as invisible as possible: a boundary between countries in no more than a technical sense. This was cemented by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which brought a relative peace to Northern Ireland that could be threatened by Brexit.
The issue of how to operate the border between the U.K. and the Irish Republic — which will remain in the European Union even after the U.K. has left — has been one of the most difficult stumbling blocks to Brexit.
The U.K. exit from the single market would technically require the introduction of border checks. But free movement was one of the requirements of the Good Friday Agreement.
In answer to a question about whether Brexit would be bad for Ireland, Trump continued, “I think it should be good. The big thing is going to be your border, and hopefully that’s going to work out, and I think it will work out.”
He then left by Marine One for the Trump golf club at Doonbeg.
