Trump Visits Ireland, Says Unification Would Be 'Fantastic'

September 12, 2026 | 09:24 pm

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - US President Donald Trump has said he would "love" to see the Republic of Ireland, an EU member, unite with British-run Northern Ireland as he faced reporters' questions on a range of issues on Saturday.

Trump is taking the weekend trip largely to watch the Irish Open golf tournament held on a course he owns on the country’s Atlantic coast, but he met as well with the Irish president and prime minister, or taoiseach.

The US leader also spoke optimistically about his country's war with Iran and its trade conflict with Canada, among several other topics.

What did Trump say about Ireland?

After a meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin in the capital, Dublin, Trump said he very much supported what he said would be the eventual unification of the two parts of the island of Ireland.

"Well, I don't want to cause any problems, but ‌I will tell you, I'd love to see ‌it unified," Trump told ‌reporters.

"The way I look at it, it's going to happen eventually ... I think it would be a ‌fantastic thing," he added.

"Now the UK will have something to say about it ... but I think it would be a great thing."

The British government responded swiftly to the remarks, with Prime Minister Andy Burham's office saying that in his view, there was no majority public support for a referendum on the issue and that there would not be another one until that changed. 

Previous US presidents have avoided touching on the subject in view of the delicate nature of the issue, with Northern Ireland seeing decades of of deadly sectarian violence in the 20th century over the question of whom it should belong to.

What did Trump say about the Iran war?

Trump also said that the US war with Iran, which began on February 28, would "end very soon" — a view he has frequently expressed in the past, but which has not yet materialized.

He also said that the end of the conflict would mean that the price of oil, which has soared as a result of the war, would "come tumbling down."

However, he vehemently defended his decision to mount the military operation against Iran.

He said that the US attacked because "Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon", adding: "They were two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon."

"If they had it, they would have blown up Israel, they would have blown up the Middle East, and they would have hit some [...] in my opinion, [of] Europe's cities and beyond cities, and they would probably hit us soon before we put out the fire. But they cannot have a nuclear weapon."

The war with Iran is not supported by a majority of the US population, particularly in view of promises made by Trump on the campaign trail to keep his country out of foreign "forever" conflicts.

What did Trump say about Canada?

The president sounded a similarly optimistic note regarding the US trade war with Canada.

He said Canada was keen to make a deal and that one could be struck "fairly soon," while reiterating his claims that Canada had treated US farmers unfairly with its tariffs.

"Canada ‌wants to make a ‌deal very badly," he said.

"Canada has to treat our farmers better. They can't ‌charge our farmers tariffs," he said, adding: "You'll probably see a deal with Canada fairly soon."

Read: Why North Korea's Kim Jong Un Doesn't Need a US Deal

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