Jack Smyth assesses Trump’s strongman foreign policy and argues that we need to heap pressure on the Irish government as they prepare to bend the knee to US imperialism once again on St Patrick’s Day.
In January, two US military planes carrying deportees of Colombian origin were refused and returned by the South American nation, sparking a heated verbal spat between Colombian president Gustavo Petro, and re-elected president Donald Trump of the US.
Trump responded to Petro’s refusal of the airplanes by threatening Colombia with a 50% tariff on all imports to the US. This hard-line escalation then prompted President Petro to take to social media with a passionate message defending his actions.
“A migrant is not a criminal and must be treated with the dignity that every human being deserves … That is why I ordered the return of US military planes carrying Colombian migrants”.
Petro also posted a video of Brazilian migrants recently deported from the US to Brazil. The video showed a line of individuals being marched onto a plane by military personnel with their hands and feet shackled in a dehumanising manner.
Despite Petro’s initial defiance, not two days later his office backtracked, agreeing to allow the military aircrafts permission to land and accepting the deported Colombians within. The response from the White House to this one-eighty betrayed the glee of the new Republican administration, now emboldened with the knowledge that such foreign opposition could be so swiftly dealt with. “Today’s events make clear to the world that America is respected again.”
For Ireland, Petro’s brief but failed resistance against Trump’s aggressive expulsion of illegal migrants (chartered on military flights, importantly) bodes poorly for the future of Shannon Airport as we look down the barrel at four more years of Trump’s aggressive expansionism and his contrived Pax Americana.
Shannon and Iraq
Since the extent to which Shannon was illegally employed by the US military throughout George Bush’s campaigns in Iraq became known amongst the Irish people, there have been largescale calls nationwide to ban US military flights from the airport.
The release of WikiLeaks’ ‘Shannon cables’ fed into the national outcry.
When the US snapped its fingers, Ireland jumped.
No flights are inspected, and so Shannon becomes a vital base for the transport of weapons and the illegal rendition of foreign nationals.
Shannon is lauded by US intelligence in these cables for being “a key transit point for US troops and material bound for theatres in the global war on terror”. In the year 2005, roughly 340,000 US troops passed through Shannon on nearly 2,500 contract carrier flights”.
Enough is enough
Two decades and a genocide in Gaza later and the situation at Shannon has barely changed.
Independent media site The Ditch have released multiple stories concerning breaches of international law implicating Shannon.
In September of last year, The Ditch reported that the airport had been used to send weapons of war from Israel to the US. In May they wrote of a US general “onboard a military cargo plane that’s frequently used to transport munitions” on its way to Israel. No amount of protests by Shannonwatch, Palestine groups, anti- war activists, Mothers against Genocide have shifted the government’s determination to not search.
Trump – business as usual
With Trump’s presidency, the undermining of Irish neutrality through the use of Shannon looks set to continue. The goings on at Shannon Airport will continue to be ignored by Micheál Martin’s administration.
Trump’s slapping of tariffs on Colombia for daring to stand in Trump’s way will no doubt be seized upon by the Irish Government as a case-study to show why doing nothing is the only way. It may even inspire even more flagrant assaults against Irish neutrality and the Triple Lock. It will certainly be used to ensure that the Occupied Territories Bill (surely the most delayed bill in history) never sees the light of day.
Yet our repeated national demonstrations for Palestine would indicate that under Trump the Irish government will find it increasingly difficult to justify a cap in hand attitude to Trump. Palestine, Shannon and the Triple Lock are interwoven as they lay bare Ireland’s longstanding ever more shocking capitulation.
A step too far
Which is why now the annual jamboree of visits on St Patrick’s Day to the US is a step too far.
Sinn Féin has decided that they will not attend as a protest against President Donald Trump’s stance on the Gaza Peninsula. Mary Lou McDonald said at the end of February that the Trump’s administration’s position was “catastrophically” wrong. She was taking “a principled stance against Trump’s proposal to remove two million Palestinians from Gaza so that the U.S. can own and rebuild a Riviera of the Middle East.
Sinn Féin were finally coming out and recognising the extent of anger over Gaza.
But McDonald spoiled the political effect of this significant move. She said that she “absolutely believed” Taoiseach Micheál Martin should travel to Washington and to the White House, urging him “not to equivocate” on the issue of Gaza. This was political wizardry, saying two things at the same time, taken to a new level.
Principled stands in opposition but not in government makes no sense.
Political grubbiness
Trump’s real estate make-over of a land evacuated of people, both in its appeasement of Netanyahu and its crude money-making aim is appalling by any count.
Martin repeats Trump’s grubby hand in the till approach. The Patrick’s Day trip to Washington DC is a “wonderful opportunity for Ireland”. To boycott it would be both “reckless and irresponsible”. ‘The last thing we need is tit-for-tat tariffs.” Evidently, our current government is more concerned by incurring any potential Trumpian wrath which would affect Irish selling power than they are in standing up against genocide.
Sinn Féin’s response – the first part of it – speaks of the scale of the impact of our movement for Palestine. We now need to bring that strong force to bear to expose the fear, the cowardice and the sheer opportunism of our government for even considering bowing the knee to Trump on St Patrick’s day.
Jack Smyth is a writer and researcher currently serving as convener for Wexford People Before Profit. You can find him on Bluesky at @jacksmyth.bsky.social
