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US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has already launched a volley of tariffs impacting allies and adversaries this year, but tomorrow he is promising a “Liberation Day” that will free the US from a reliance on foreign goods.
This is expected to come in the form of even more tariffs, with the EU squarely in the firing line.
Ireland is expected to be one of the most affected countries when Trump announces the new round of tariffs – with this country the EU nation that is most reliant on the US export market.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has already warned that the tariffs “could very well” impact on the Budget later this year, and signalled that the government will try and focus on investment on major infrastructure.
The exact nature of the announcements is unclear. Even the timing is not confirmed but the speculation is that 9pm tomorrow Irish-time is when people should expect major news.
But what are we likely to expect and what else is in the pipeline?
Trump fired his first salvo in early February, announcing tariffs of up to 25% on goods from Canada and Mexico while demanding they do more to stop illegal immigration and the smuggling of the illicit drug fentanyl.
While he postponed their implementation to March and later provided partial relief to aid the auto industry, the state of these exemptions after tomorrow remains unclear.
China won no such reprieve over the same period. The Trump administration imposed an additional 20% tariff on goods from the world’s second-biggest economy, over its alleged role in supply chains of drugs like fentanyl.
Trump has separately taken aim at key sectors, with 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports taking effect in mid-March. Tariffs on imported autos, meanwhile, kick in on Thursday.
The president has unveiled blanket 25% tariffs on direct and indirect buyers of Venezuelan oil too, which could happen as soon as tomorrow.
Trump has not detailed the scale of his reciprocal tariffs, aimed at correcting trade imbalances and practices he and his supporters deem unfair.
But these will likely target around 15% of US trading partners, dubbed a “Dirty 15″ by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Analysts expect the group could be similar to economies mentioned by the US Trade Representative (USTR) in its call for comments to identify unfair trade practices.
Parties on the list which the United States has notable trade deficits with include China, the European Union, Mexico, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Canada.
According to the White House, Trump’s reciprocal duties will consider the tariffs that partners impose on US goods, and other factors like value-added taxes or digital service taxes.
Here in Ireland, government sources have said the EU is operating on the basis that a 20% blanket tariff will be initially applied to all EU countries by the Trump administration.
32% of Ireland’s goods exports go to the US, while 17% of our imports emanate from there.
Analysis co-authored by the Department of Finance and the ESRI has suggested the tariffs could cost Ireland more than €18 billion in lost trade.
There are also fears about US companies based in Ireland being forced to uproot due to the tariffs – fears which were only exacerbated when Trump name-checked pharmaceutical companies in Ireland while speaking in the White House last week.
Trump could unveil further sector-specific tariffs tomorrow, having earlier indicated plans to target pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and lumber.
I deeply regret the U.S. decision to impose tariffs on EU automotive exports.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) March 26, 2025
Tariffs are taxes – bad for businesses, worse for consumers, in the US and the EU.
The EU will continue to seek negotiated solutions, while safeguarding its economic interests ↓
US trading partners have pushed back on Trump’s measures.
China swiftly imposed counter-levies of 10% and 15% on US agriculture goods like soybeans, while the EU unveiled countermeasures in response to US steel and aluminum tariffs.
The bloc threatened duties to hit some $28 billion of US goods in stages from April, affecting products from bourbon to motorbikes.
But their start has been delayed until mid-April to allow more time for dialogue.
Trump has warned of punishing 200% tariffs on Europe’s wine and spirits sector in the meantime, alarming foreign producers and US businesses.
This could pose a severe threat to Ireland’s whiskey industry.
More recently, major European economies urged for firm action by the bloc over Trump’s auto tariffs.
Canada has struck back with tariffs on around $42bn in US goods, hitting steel products, aluminum and items like computers.
Mexico is waiting until early April to respond comprehensively.
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Frightening news. Huge employer here.
Well there is a surprise, I have a bet between Intel 1st and HP. Both very close to each other in leixlip/maynooth/celbridge
and IBM. Its quite scary
I took voluntary redundancy from Intel in 2000, they offered a savage package, if they did the same again there would be plenty of volunteers
I had to do some work in Intel a few years ago and boy it was one place I would hate to work in. The people looked stressed out and miserable.
Oh I hope Wally Mooney has some intelligent, measured and well-conceived commentary on this…
Surely Ruth Coppinger would nationalise this, just like her plan for Dell!!!
…..Any moment now
We should play Wally Bingo. Let’s see how often the post uses the following words or terms ‘workers’ ‘exploits’ capitalist’ ‘profit’ creating wealth’ solidarity with Luas and/or cadburys’
‘Gifted by capital’…’working class’….’odious debt’…’backs of workers’…’fiat currency’…’keystrokes’…YAAAAAWWWWN.
“Macro economics”
Banksters, Neo-liberals, Scabs, Rack Rents, Banker Tax, Capitalist Elite, The 1% ,
Oh, shut it.
Not you, Moran, parmesan etc.
On reflection, you also.
It would be more interesting to hear your comments Collie, John, Greg etc. ? This after all is your beloved capitalist system in action.
A highly profitable company with massive financial resources make a strategic positioning alteration, cloud focused, and dispenses with 11,000 employees who were critical to its past and present success.
Put not your trust in large corporations unless you have your timely exit strategy worked out.
Unless of course you were going to be offering those 11,000 jobs tomorrow even if just for a few short years, I think I would put my trust in a large corporation first thanks. .
True, but who in the world actually expects their employer to put their job before the good of the company? Who in the world expects their job to be secure on the decade scale? Who in the world hasn’t kept their eye on the job market even when they’re happy where they are?
Public sector workers, perhaps. That’s a very different culture though.
Krups, atari, dell, banta, all huge factories that pulled out and near destroyed one city in the country. And I’m sure there are other urban areas have been equally destroyed by big factories moving in, making micro economies and then…gone. What have we learned?
Well said Fiona, one should always read the small print and look for what they exclude. Eg mental health care for the stress these companies place. I could not believe that in Intel that in one office no one could leave until their boss left even if it Kent staying on 2/3 hours more after 5. Shocking!
When you use words such as ‘destroyed’ you lose credibility in my books Jenni. Such ridiculous hyperbole is not needed. When Krups, Dell etc left limerick left it caused an upsurge in unemployment which would be obvious, and then most got new jobs over the following years. If they had chosen never to have located operations in Ireland we would have been far worse off. You can’t keep foreign company’s here forever and ever.
Luas drivers and their union?
Fiona would you prefer they never came in the first place. Lefties you just love wallowing in misery. Never mind Intel has contributed massively to Ireland for a quarter of a century.
As an employee in Leixlip not sure what to think, VSP will be popular among people there 10+ years, but for us only in the door graduates the fear looms of uncertainty especially knowing we are easy targets for payoffs
Last in, first out which is usually total bull
Huge amount of building work going on to expand the plant in Leixlip can’t see them putting to much money into it if they’re going to sack everyone down there.
Plans change. The cost of those expansions are a drop in the ocean for them.
They’re spending 5bn there so that sites probably safe but there are sires in Cork and Shannon and those guys must be worried. Hopefully they’ll be OK.Intel have a lot invested in Ireland.
There is a link to that story from 2014 at the top of the comments. €3.5bn investment here for the new wave of technology.
They built a mega fab in arizona in 2012 and left it empty. …anything is possible
Yes but the operation in Dublin is too important. They will downscale the smaller divisions and probably admin operations given IT is now driving the admin through self service anyway. I doubt/hope not much of a cut in Dublin
Shannon and Cork are software and sales sites. Basically acquisitions. I would very much doubt they are impacted. The rationale behind this is around falling PC sales.
As time passes it takes less and less people to do a job as we automate more and let the computers take over…with a rising population, has anyone stopped and ask what will everybody do ? Answer is a revolution of epic proportions…probably after we have all long passed…but still something that will happen
Yer watching Terminator too much…
Doubt their offshore 12.5% corporation tax goldmine, or in other words ‘Ireland’ will be impacted too much,
Ireland is a cost centre for Intel, just like any other. The rate of tax is not dependent on headcount – equating the two is nonsensical.
True, I stand corrected.
I still believe there’s an argument to be made in terms of the more people these international companies employ in Ireland, the less risk of corporation tax being hiked.
Fab 24 contributed 13.2 billion to its overall output in the past year, its the only Fab currently in the world producing chips at a massive scale, still doesnt mean any of us are guarenteed our jobs in the next few months
Where is Ruth Coppinger – quick , nationalise it . The Irish can make their own chips out of potatoes. Isnt that right Ruth
Surely will have a direct impact on Irish workforce given the numbers here. You’d imagine the Dell/EMC merger will be another organisation shedding jobs as part of a restructure!
@icantiwont: Dell/EMC has already shed jobs at the start of January in Ireland and U.S.
Every time we get good news jobs announcements (donegal last few days), it’s like the gov know what’s coming and are making some half hearted attempt to lessen the impact of the bad news that’s gonna soon follow.
We don’t have a Government
Oops. I forgot, amid all the chaos ensuing without our “great” ones!
The thing about semiconductor manufacture is that it depends on so much plant. The cleanrooms and facilities are a big investment in themselves. The plant tends.to gol on to the jobs.
Now if Intel was a public service company rather than a private company………..
or an ex semi-state like telecom/eircom/eir…….
…computers would all be running on AMD chips?
For about twenty minutes on the third Tuesday in March!
First off any job loss is unfortunate and hopefully the number impacted in Ireland is relatively low. If they are, i hope they get a whopping redundancy package to compensate.
But this is the reality with any multinational based in Ireland this is a corporation not a public service entity, or a zombie bank with vested interests in keeping it alive. Its a profit making publicly trading company and is realigning its operations to best service its long term interests and strategy. read the press release – https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/news-release-intel-announces-restructuring/
Hopefully the operations in Ireland are more aligned with the long term strategy, i would believe they are given the huge investment recently announced. Ultimately a small business can decide to make similar changes or cuts to survive and this happens every day, while others are growing, With corporations its magnified as the numbers are much bigger. In a healthy functioning economy the losses are outweighed by the gains and overtime the jobs lost are replaced by different jobs, possibly higher skilled jobs.
Its up to us to recognize the opportunities and future education needs so we are best placed to capitalize going forward. I think there is a lot more we should be doing in that regard in developing a long term strategy as a country rather than fighting over petrol pump politics. The real world is constantly changing and moving forward and we need to evolve with it. There is no such thing as a job for life in the private sector, companies can come and go but you can build a career and profession but this can span multiple companies. Just make sure you are building a decent pension and make good financial choices for the long term.
Leixlip makes the tech which BK was talking about server/data centre products and IoT the products rolling out of Ireland are the best in class proven (source. I work there) there will be cuts but more than likely people away from the production aspect… Non ‘value added’ people I.e . SoC products are the big sellers (which are designed here) are why they chose Ireland as the main production hub for Europe. Consistently outperforming US manufacturing on cost, productivity and quality can only be a good thing.
And some people scoffed at the idea of nationalising DELL etc. Jobs went anyway. Here we go again. Thanks for the exploitation capitalism. Hope you made a good profit on our backs.
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