President-elect Donald Trump upset the leaders of Britain and Germany when the first congratulatory phone call with a European leader that he took was from Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny.
MSNBC reported that both the British and German leaders were furious that Trump chose to take the call from Ireland first.
It was quite a coup for the Irish government, orchestrated through the Irish Embassy and routed through a close friend of Rudy Giuliani – thought to be Congressman Peter King from Long Island, a long time close friend of Giuliani.
During the ten minute call with Kenny, Trump praised the decisions taken by Kenny's government on the Irish economy and confirmed that the US would continue to work with Ireland and would continue the St. Patrick’s Day tradition of inviting the Taoiseach to the White House.
“I had a very good conversation with the president-elect,” Kenny said.
“He understands Ireland very well. He was complimentary about the decisions made about the economy here. He is looking forward to doing business with Ireland and I asked him specifically about Patrick’s Day, he is looking forward to continuing that tradition over many years.”
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The announcement of the St. Patrick’s Day party, first started by former president Bill Clinton in 1994, is very good news. The event has become a very important one on the Irish American calendar as well as for the Irish government.
Meanwhile economist Stephen Moore, one of Trump’s economic advisors, stated that American companies would be leaving Ireland to take advantage of lower tax rates under Trump.
“I believe that when we cut these tax rates – we’re going to cut our business tax rate from roughly 35 percent down to roughly 15- 20 percent – if you do that you are going to see a flood of companies leaving Ireland and Canada and Germany and France and they are going to come back to the United States,” Moore said.
“It is going to have a very high impact on jobs.”
Referring to plans to lower the tax rate as the “single most important thing for our country right now,” Moore continued, stating that the new tax regime would put a halt to the number of US companies relocating overseas to take advantages of lower tax rates.
“There is no question about it, and we see day after day in this country that we are losing our businesses and our corporations,” he said.
“They are effectively renouncing their US citizenship and they are moving to Canada, to Britain, to Ireland, to China and Mexico.
“That is a significant loss of jobs and we want to have the jobs here in the United States. We don’t want to have them go abroad.”
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