Territory, tariffs and trade
Responding to Trump’s re-ordering on each of these fronts will not be easy, not least for both parts of Ireland and the United Kingdom. The contributions in this issue suggest that it may assist to keep them separate. On territorial ambitions by the United States and Israel in Gaza and the West Bank there is a need for collective action by everyone else, not least in Europe and among Arab and Islamic states, to restore pressure for the two-state settlement and to rule out any plan to persuade or force the Palestinian population to move elsewhere. That will require greater support for the United Nations role in Gaza and for sanctions and legal action against the current Israeli government’s plans for annexation.
On Ukraine what is needed is acceptance that neither NATO nor any European coalition of the willing can realistically hope to expel Russia from all the territory it has occupied. What can be done is to deploy sufficient forces on the ground and along the current line of control to deter any further Russian aggression. That has been the standard United Nations strategy in dealing with territorial wars in Korea, Kashmir, Cyprus, Lebanon and in Africa: starting with a ceasefire to stop the fighting and then deploying international troops and monitors to deter any further territorial gains on either side.
On tariffs and trade it is hard to assess the balance between retaliatory action of the kind threatened by Canada and some in the European Union and the alternative UK strategy of continued negotiation for a fairer future trade agreement. Only time will tell on the overall impact of escalating tariff wars on global economic performance. Stock markets currently fear a recession. Ireland is in a difficult position on this, given its long history of low taxation of multinational corporations, encouragement to offshore their profits and special sweetheart deals like that for Apple in contravention of EU rules. One possibility might be to join with the UK in seeking an overall trade agreement that takes account of the peculiar status of Northern Ireland betwixt and between the UK and the EU as part of the reset of British Irish relations.
