US President Donald Trump stands on the tarmac as he arrives at Dublin Airport for a two-day visit to Dublin and Doonbeg, in Ireland. (Reuters image)
Because of concern about Trump’s unpredictable pronouncements, reports in August said New Delhi preferred no questions after a Modi-Trump meeting at the G7, partly.
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. “I’d love to see it unified,” he said alongside Taoiseach Micheal Martin. He called it “a fantastic thing,” adding that Martin was “the right man over here to get it moving.
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. Instead, he went totally Trump. “It’s going to happen eventually. It may as well happen now. He did remember one small detail: “The UK will have something to say about it, obviously. Indeed, India has already learned the hazards of the Trump microphone. Indian officials subsequently described the no-question format as standard diplomatic practice.