TOI correspondent from Washington: There are presidential visits, there are diplomatic visits, and then there are Donald Trump visits, when the host country may want to hide the microphones, lock away the constitutional documents, quietly check whether the president has been given the correct map, and show him some attractive real estate.Ireland got the full Trump treatment on Saturday, including being jokingly told, “You are some of the most vicious bastards I’ve ever done business with… But when you want to be nice, there’s nobody nicer.”Asked about the politically explosive question of Irish reunification, the US President did not reach for the traditional diplomatic vocabulary of “the people of Northern Ireland,” “the Good Friday Agreement” or “the principle of consent.” Instead, he went totally Trump.“I’d love to see it unified,” he said alongside Taoiseach Micheal Martin. “It’s going to happen eventually. It may as well happen now.” He called it “a fantastic thing,” adding that Martin was “the right man over here to get it moving.” He did remember one small detail: “The UK will have something to say about it, obviously.”The remarks immediately sent ripples through Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and where unionist politicians pointed out that the constitutional future of the province is for its people to decide under the Good Friday Agreement.Irish unity is not exactly the sort of subject normally introduced at a presidential press conference with the conversational ease of ordering another round of Guinness. But this was standard Trump fare: why spend three years constructing a sentence when you can detonate one in 30 seconds?The consequences of this approach extend well beyond Ireland. If Trump’s airplane heads toward Seoul, Pyongyang, Taipei, Beijing, New Delhi or Islamabad, officials might reasonably wonder whether the visitor intends to discuss trade, security and investment — or casually announce that two countries ought to reunify before dinner.North and South Korea? Perhaps Trump will say reunification is inevitable. China and Taiwan? Beijing might want to confiscate the microphone before he gets to dessert. India and Pakistan? Islamabad and New Delhi could spend weeks preparing talking points only to discover that Trump has arrived with his own map and a fresh idea about “Cash-mere.”The MAGA supremo believes India and Pakistan have been fighting for thousands for years — despite Pakistan having been born only in 1947, not to speak of Islam being only about 1400 years old.Indeed, India has already learned the hazards of the Trump microphone. Reports in August said New Delhi preferred no questions after a Modi-Trump meeting at the G7, partly because of concern about Trump’s unpredictable pronouncements. Indian officials subsequently described the no-question format as standard diplomatic practice.Of course, Trump fans regard his refusal to behave like a conventional diplomat as precisely his strength and attraction. To admirers, he says what politicians normally bury beneath twelve layers of briefing-paper varnish and mealy-mouthed platitudes.There was plenty more from Trump in Ireland, including an assertion that the Iran war would end “very soon,” and Teheran was essentially trying to complicate America’s elections, the US “put out the fire” in Gaza, and if there were any protests in Ireland against his visit – there were – he had not noticed them, and in any case, they would be friendly protests.
