gotchanewsdaily.com 
All sidestep the issue by saying democratic outcomes must be respected. McDonald, in particular, has avoided repeating her 2018 assessment that Trump is “sexist, misogynistic and racist.” All, if leading the next Irish government, would expect to be invited to the Trump White House in March for St. Patrick’s Day, a diplomatic tradition that dates back to the Eisenhower administration.
Typically, when asked about the threat that Trump could pose to U.S. multinational operations in Ireland, Harris and Martin deflect to their coalition’s cautious stockpiling of tax billions collected from the likes of Apple, Google, Microsoft and Big Pharma.
Debating points
At Monday night’s first televised debate of the campaign, Martin and Harris sought to contrast their government’s creation of sovereign wealth funds — and plans to stockpile €50 billion more in the coming five years, equivalent to €9,000 for every man, woman and child in the country — with Sinn Féin’s spend-it-now approach.
During a more than two-hour debate, Harris mentioned Trump only once by name, saying Ireland needed maximum financial firepower banked in case the incoming administration changed American tax rules that have made Ireland such a profitable base, particularly for a Who’s Who of American drugmakers that chiefly export to the U.S. market.
Trump’s advocacy of lowering the U.S. corporate tax rate nearer to Ireland’s 15 percent, combined with potential 20 percent tariffs on Irish-produced goods, would undermine key reasons why these firms have made Ireland the world’s third-largest drugs exporter.
“What are you going to do, Deputy McDonald, if President Donald Trump decides to impose tariffs on this country? What are you going to do if there is a transatlantic trade shock? Where are you going to have the money?” Harris asked the Sinn Féin chief .She countered that saving €15 billion should be enough to offset risk in a country that currently collects close to double that amount annually in corporate taxes.
