Paul Hopkins: Golf resort the least of Trump's handicaps

As Donald Trump flies into Ireland, the American people are remembering the catastrophic events of the 9/11 Twin Towers attack 25 years ago. A whole generation of Americans have grown up in the shadow of the terrorist suicide mission that left some 3,000 souls dead in the attacks on the towers, the Pentagon and the defiance of Flight 93 which thwarted the efforts of extremists to attack Washington DC.

In the 25 years since 9/11, critics have been derided for describing the United States as being in relative decline. Today, five years after the US pulled out of Afghanistan ending its long, costly (largely wasted $8 trillion) and flawed War On Terror, America could be said to be at a potential turning point towards, indeed, decline.

Twenty-five years on from George W Bush's 'let's kick ass', if America's 368 million people have learned anything, it is that America’s divisions are more deeply drawn than many in politics acknowledge

Despite the American president's dramatic decline in opinion polls and his crazy antics in the Middle East, Trumpism is still there, in a country of two Americas whose occupants see themselves and the wider world in radically different ways.

Public trust in the political establishment, the media, and governance remains badly bruised, and many within these institutions have hugely miscalculated the resentment and anger among the disaffected for whom Trump had promised to make Make America Great Again.

As Trump heads for Ireland, Irish-American relations are at their most strained since the State’s foundation. The White House has levied tariffs against the European Union, lectured Europe about how its democracies are failing, and has actively supported right-wing movements throughout the continent.

The Irish-American vote is a classic swing vote. It’s not red nor blue. That’s been the case since Eisenhower and Kennedy. Most Irish voted for Eisenhower, the war hero, even though he was a Republican, and they probably also supported Nixon.

There is no doubt that many Irish Americans backedTrump in the US election. However there has since been a shift within the community – and across American society in general – that now puts many Irish-American voters at odds with the current administration.

Donald Trump’s presence in Doonbeg sits at an unusual intersection of small-town economics, presidential ethics, and geopolitical spectacle. Trump bought the Co. Clare resort in 2014 for €15 million, when the course had never turned a profit. He and his family invested tens of millions. The bet paid off. TIGL Ireland Enterprises, the company behind the resort, posted an operating profit of €2.3m. in 2024. And, as Trump’s financial disclosures show, the property generates serious personal income, close to €20m. last year.

Why is the income politically loaded? The money itself isn’t controversial; Doonbeg was a legitimate acquisition before Trump entered politics. What draws scrutiny is that a sitting US president continues to personally profit from a foreign-based business that foreign governments, US agencies, and political allies patronise.

In Ireland when Mike Pence visited in 2019, he stayed at Doonbeg, 200 miles from his Dublin meetings, at a cost of $600,000 in taxpayer travel expenses, with the Secret Service separately paying the resort more than $15,000 for the stay. This time around, there will be security operations, traffic restrictions, and a considerable number of visitors descending on the area. Security is estimated at around €23 million, involving 4,000 personnel.

A total of 70,000 spectators are expected to travel to West Clare for the Irish Open – an extraordinary number for a part of the country that normally moves at a vastly different pace.

When Donald Trump visited Ireland during his first term as US president in 2019, a group of 200 protesters set up a "peace camp” at Shannon Airport for the duration of his visit. This weekend, Trump will be meeting one of those protesters in Áras an Uachtaráin.

President Connolly – who protested seven years ago because, as she said it was "very important to stand in solidarity with people who think that Trump's policies are unacceptable” – will have the honour of meeting him.

Her many supporters who backed her during the presidential campaign for her uncompromising ability to speak her mind and to take a moral stance, might view this as something of a betrayal of that rhetoric. But she is conscious that to do anything other than meet the US president would be considered a snub that would create unwanted controversy

Watch the body language, though...