{"id":223937,"date":"2026-09-12T16:27:46","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T16:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-says-he-would-love-to-see-a-united-ireland-during-visit-for-golf-tournament-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T16:27:46","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T16:27:46","slug":"trump-says-he-would-love-to-see-a-united-ireland-during-visit-for-golf-tournament-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-says-he-would-love-to-see-a-united-ireland-during-visit-for-golf-tournament-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says he would \u2018love\u2019 to see a united Ireland during visit for golf tournament – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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President Donald Trump said Saturday he would \u201clove\u201d \u2060to see Ireland unify with the U.K.\u2019s Northern Ireland, remarks that received immediate pushback from unionists in the region.
The comments come two weeks after new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham <\/a>said a referendum on Northern Ireland leaving the United Kingdom was \u201coff the table.\u201d
Trump says a united Ireland will happen
Trump, who is visiting Dublin ahead of a golf tournament at one of his resorts, told reporters: \u201cWell, I don\u2019t want to \u2060cause any problems, but I will tell you, I\u2019d \u200blove \u2060to see it unified. It\u2019s going to happen eventually.\u201d
\u201cNow the U.K. will have something to say about it … but \u200bI think \u2060it would be a great thing,\u201d \u200che added, while sitting next to Ireland\u2019s Prime Minister Miche\u00e1l Martin.
At a later event with business leaders, Trump said that there was \u201cno good answer\u201d to the question, but reaffirmed: \u201cIt would be, I think, a very cool thing, to be honest with you.\u201d
Under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the power to call a referendum in Northern Ireland sits with the British government, with a duty to call a border poll if it appears likely that a majority of people in Northern Ireland would vote for Irish unification.
The accord ended decades of violence between Irish nationalists seeking a united Ireland \u200cand unionists who wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of the U.K.
Polling continues to show a comfortable majority in Northern Ireland favor remaining in the U.K., though the gap has narrowed slightly since Britain\u2019s departure from the European Union. Ireland remains in the bloc, with bespoke arrangements for Northern Ireland put in place to avert fears of a hard border and substantial trade barriers on the island.
Asked by NBC News whether Downing Street had a response to the president\u2019s remarks, a spokesperson said British Prime Minister Andy Burnham intends to adhere to the Good Friday Agreement.
Under the accord, the matter would be reviewed \u201cwhen public opinion has changed to the point at which the call has to be considered,\u201d Burnham said earlier this week.
The leader of Northern Ireland\u2019s Democratic Unionist Party, Gavin Robinson, pushed back at Trump\u2019s comments, stressing that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom \u201cbecause that is the settled democratic will of its people.\u201d
\u201cPresident Trump knows better than most that elections matter,\u201d he wrote in a post on X. \u201cNorthern Ireland\u2019s constitutional future will be decided by the people of Northern Ireland, not by commentary in London, Dublin or Washington.\u201d
Kemi Badenoch, leader of Britain\u2019s opposition Conservative Party, said Trump was \u201cshooting from the hip as usual\u201d in his remarks, adding: \u201cThis sort of loose talk about the future of democratic countries is deeply unhelpful and creates unnecessary tension.\u201d
Trump\u2019s remarks did not win him much approval from the largest nationalist party, Sinn F\u00e9in, which is left-wing and deeply opposed to many of the U.S. president\u2019s other political views.
Chris Hazzard, an MP for the party, wrote on X: \u201cBroken clocks and all that\u2026\u201d
On his visit, Trump also met Irish President Catherine Connolly,<\/a> who was elected head of state last year. When Trump last visited Ireland as president in 2019, Connolly, an outspoken politician with far-left foreign policy views, protested outside Shannon Airport in western Ireland.
Some supporters had \u200curged her to speak out against U.S. military actions around the world and \u200bdefend Ireland\u2019s neutrality.
Anti-war and anti-Trump protests were planned in Dublin and in \u200cwestern Ireland near the Trump International Golf Links \u2060in Doonbeg. One protester held a Palestine flag over a fence near the \u2060Irish president\u2019s residence.
Ireland is one of the European Union\u2019s most pro-Palestinian countries and in July passed a law restricting trade \u200cin goods with settlements in \u200bthe Israeli-occupied West Bank. U.S. lawmakers and the U.S. \u200cambassador to Ireland criticized the law.
Martin, the Irish prime minister, has so far avoided political flaps with the U.S.
\u201cThe relationship between Ireland and the United \u2060States is very important economically,\u201d he told reporters ahead of the visit. \u201cIt\u2019s very, very significant both ways.\u201d
U.S.-owned companies employ about 10% of workers in Ireland after successive governments prioritized their jobs and corporate tax revenue over decades, handing Ireland the healthiest public finances in Europe in recent years.
Including \u200cTrump, eight sitting U.S. presidents have visited Ireland, \u2060starting with John F. Kennedy in 1963. But this trip has some hallmarks of \u2060Trump\u2019s typical weekends, which often revolve around golf outings at his company\u2019s properties.
The Trump Organization took control in 2014 of \u200cthe Doonbeg course, which is \u200bhosting the Irish Open golf tournament this weekend. Trump \u200cis expected to help present the trophy \u200bon Sunday to the tournament champion.
Nick Duffy is a London-based weekend and world editor for NBC News.
Jean-Nicholas Fievet is a senior desk editor for NBC News based in London.
Reuters
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timePresident Donald Trump said Saturday he would \u201clove\u201d \u2060to see Ireland unify with the U.K.\u2019s Northern Ireland, remarks that received immediate pushback from unionists in the region.The comments come two weeks after new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said a referendum on Northern Ireland leaving the United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":223938,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}