Donald Trump's plans to repatriate US corporate tax from countries like Ireland is a "non-starter" because they are tied to tax cuts for the rich, the Democratic governor of Virginia Terry McAuliffe said on a visit to Dublin.
The former Democratic Party chairman and a one-time major fundraiser for the Clintons said most Democrats would agree on repatriation but not with cuts to taxes on the wealthy, and to public services.
“His proposed budget was beyond ludicrous,” said Mr McAuliffe, on a trade mission to Ireland, his first official visit to the country as governor.
Asked if the Irish should be concerned about the Republican president’s tax plans, the chairman of the influential National Governors Association gave Ireland credit for making itself “very tax advantageous for American companies” but said the US needed to be smart, too.
“We need a tax code that incentivises businesses to keep their money in America, just as you would want with Irish companies. Is that going to happen? I don’t know. It is complicated,” he said.
Trade mission
The value of exports from Virginia to Ireland amounted to $8.9 billion (€8 billion) in 2015, up 14 per cent on the previous year. Pharmaceuticals ($2.3 billion), industrial machinery ($1.3 billion) and aircraft ($1.1 billion) were the state’s biggest export sectors.
Virginia – home to the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency and the world's largest naval base at Norfolk – is the largest recipient of US military and defence spending.
Mr McAuliffe said that across-the-board cuts to the US federal budget had cut billions from Virginia's economy and increased his focus on international trade. His visit to Ireland, part of a seven-country trip to Europe, is his 28th trade mission.
‘Act of war’
He disagreed “vehemently” with Mr Trump’s opposition to international trade deals, called his immigration policy “horrible”, and lambasted him for pulling out of the Paris climate agreement.
“The president has got to get his out of the sand and understand the realities of a global economy,” he said.
He does not see Mr Trump being impeached for obstruction of justice for firing FBI director James Comey but is in no doubt that Mr Comey cost Hillary Clinton the presidency by disclosing an investigation into her private email, or that the Russians meddled in last year's election.
"Russia tried to come in and destabilise the government of the United States of America. That is an act of war and it needs to be treated as such," he said.
