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Donald Trump has been urged to appoint a special envoy to Northern Ireland as US lawmakers warn of “genuine concern” over the future of American investment in the region.
Leading Irish-American members of Congress said naming a representative was needed to protect US interests in Northern Ireland amid anxieties over rocky politics and rising trade tensions.
“Despite continued interest among American companies to further invest in the region, political instability and bureaucracy in Northern Ireland remains a genuine concern among stakeholders and policymakers on this side of the Atlantic,” congressmen Richard Neal and Mike Kelly wrote in a joint letter, seen by the Financial Times and sent to Trump on Friday.
“With the appointment of a new Special Envoy, US companies would have renewed certainty that their investment in the region is sound,” added the lawmakers, a Democrat and Republican, who head the bipartisan Friends of Ireland caucus.
The letter comes as business and government leaders from across Ireland are set to travel to the US this week for the annual St Patrick’s Day celebrations with the threat of trade wars — including anticipated tariffs against the EU — hanging over them.
Every US president since Bill Clinton has appointed an emissary to Northern Ireland, initially to help secure peace and oversee the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended three decades of conflict. But the focus of the role has since become more economic in nature.
During his first term, Trump appointed Mick Mulvaney, his former chief of staff, to the role. Since returning to office the president has named a host of special envoys to different parts of the world, but has given no indication he plans to send one to Northern Ireland.
On a trip to Belfast in 2023, Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden said US businesses had invested over $2bn into Northern Ireland over the past decade — a figure he suggested could triple in the years ahead.
Northern Ireland enjoys access both to the UK market and the EU’s single market for goods. But political instability and rows over post-Brexit trading rules have been a drag on investment. The Stormont Assembly and power-sharing executive were on hold for two years until February last year and the investment boom Biden touted has not yet materialised.
Neal, a longtime supporter of the Northern Ireland peace process, said that a US envoy to Belfast who could advocate for greater American investment was “essential” for the region’s continued economic development.
“With the amount of money that the UK and others put into the North — I think that it needs a bigger and larger embrace of foreign enterprise and investment,” he told the FT.
One senior official said Stormont “would be delighted” if Trump named a new trade envoy. “The economic relationship with the US is really important. And it’s not just FDI — it’s our companies in the US,” he said.
Northern Irish officials would be meeting businesses there this week, the official added, “to try to get them to reinvest and win some new investors — there’s still a strong pipeline.”
Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin will meet Trump on Wednesday at the White House St Patrick’s Day celebration.
Roger Pollen, head of the Federation of Small Businesses in Northern Ireland, also welcomed the prospect of a special envoy and noted more than a third of US presidents could trace their roots to the region.
“These [business] links are already strong and well established but there is vastly more potential to develop,” he told the FT.
