Irish agri food companies exporting to the US should focus on the “very big objectives” made clear from the Trump administration’s approach to trade amid ongoing “unpredictability” from President Donald Trump’s uncertain approach to announcing developments in trade relations.

It is these “big strokes” Irish firms exporting to the US should look to when determining the tack they will take with US markets, rather than “every tweet or every announcement” the US administration fires off.

That is according to EY’s co-head of geopolitical strategy Simon MacAllister, who suggested that the firms should hone in on the aim of lowering the the dollar's value to return manufacturing back to American shores.

ADVERTISEMENT

MacAllister said that the unpredictability of trade relations with the US currently is not dissimilar to that which marred Brexit negotiations between the UK and the EU before the final deal was struck.

“The impact [of Trump tariffs] has been one that brings me back to the time of Brexit because a lot of the parallels to that were around not really knowing where things are going to get to,” the strategist told the Irish Farmers Journal’s breakfast briefing at Ploughing 2025 on Wednesday.

“And that uncertainty has been the big issue that a lot of our clients are talking to us about and saying ‘we’ll have to pause an investment, we are going to wait until there is a decision’.

“The tariff agreement that is there at the moment, light and all as it is, at least is some sort of clarity. It is worse that it was six months ago but people can start to plan.

“We know that the very explicit objective in the US is to weaken the dollar. That has helped us on energy, it’s one little boost there was for us, but it has hurt our competitiveness as exporters.”

Tariffs to stay

Trump tariffs are unlikely to be reversed by the current president’s successor, MacAllister reckoned.

“If you are a domestic producer in the US, imagine they come to bring that down. You’ll be banging on the door saying don’t you dare.

“That is a big advantage to us to protect us so dismantling that will be hard and slow.”

Competitiveness and the Budget

On the upcoming Budget 2026, the EY consultant noted that presidential election debate has kept “kite flying to a minimum” on speculation around areas mooted for spending increases on the low.

“But we are really going to get that now in earnest over the next couple of weeks,” MacAllister commented.

“Our expectation is that it is going to be framed around trying to deal with our competitiveness and that is what we are hearing from Government which, if they do deliver on it, would be great.

“The kind of things we expect to see on that are better incentives for research and development. Less important on-farm but very important to processors and a lot for the different sectors who are here and want to make certain investments, want to spend on innovation, want to spend on product development .”