Trump lands in Dublin for talks and an Open on his own course

Donald Trump landed at Dublin Airport shortly after 8 a.m. on Saturday for a two-day visit that mixes courtesy calls with a golf tournament on a course he owns. Tanaiste Simon Harris met him on the tarmac. The president then headed for Phoenix Park, where he is due to see President Catherine Connolly at Aras an Uachtarain and Taoiseach Micheal Martin at Farmleigh, before a reception for American and Irish business leaders at Deerfield, the U.S. ambassador's residence.

The trip is not a state visit. It sits between Friday's 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, which Trump did not attend in New York, and the Amgen Irish Open at Trump International Golf Links in Doonbeg, County Clare. He is expected to watch play on Sunday and, according to Irish officials, may present the trophy. Donald Trump Jr, Bettina Anderson and two of the president's grandsons travelled with him. Extra.ie reported that he arrived on the Air Force One jet donated by the Qatari royal family.

Connolly, elected last year, has criticised U.S. policy on Gaza and the wider Middle East war. In 2019 she protested Trump's first Irish visit outside Shannon Airport. He later referred to her as a man. She has said she will meet and greet him. Martin's relationship is cooler in tone and warmer in practice. On Friday night he said he looked forward to discussing the many issues of mutual interest and reaffirming the strong economic, cultural and people-to-people ties. He told the BBC's Borderlands podcast that Trump was very anxious to get to Doonbeg and watch the Irish Open.

Ireland's exposure to the United States is concrete. U.S. firms account for a large share of corporation tax and of employment in pharmaceuticals, technology and medical devices. A two-day visit that turns sour would not rewrite those books overnight. It would still land on a government that is trying to keep Washington close while a left-wing head of state speaks in a different register. Some Dubliners treated the visit as a traffic problem. Taxi driver Christopher Fox told the Guardian the president was causing mayhem in this city because he wants to go down to Doonbeg and play golf.

Gardai sealed parts of the 1,750-acre Phoenix Park. Dublin City Council posted rolling road closures from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. and from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Shannon Airport is also on the itinerary because the Clare leg uses it. Anti-war and anti-Trump protests were planned in Dublin and near Doonbeg. An earlier plan to turn the sod on a new U.S. embassy in the capital is, the BBC reported, no longer expected to go ahead.

The political calendar in Washington explains the timing as much as the fairways. Republicans are trying to hold both chambers in November. Diesel at $6.06 a gallon and the seventh month of the Iran war have raised household costs. A weekend in Ireland lets the president stand next to a European leader who still wants American capital, then spend Sunday on a course that carries his name. Connolly's choice is narrower. She can use the courtesy call to put her record on the record, or she can keep the greeting short and leave the argument to Martin.

Connolly's staff have a short call to choreograph. A greeting at the Aras can last ten minutes. A longer conversation would have to touch the war, migration and the fact that the visitor owns the course where the Open is being played. Martin's meeting at Farmleigh is the one that can produce a line on investment and on Irish companies in the United States. Neither meeting is a negotiation. Both will be read as if they were.

What will be measurable on Monday is whether any joint line emerged on trade, on the Iran war, or on Irish concerns about U.S. immigration policy. The rest is choreography: a red carpet at Dublin Airport, a closed park, and a leader who flew past Ground Zero to reach a links course on the Atlantic.