ICYMI: Ireland's International Reach

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0:42Darragh O’Brien:Healthcare doesn't always work great. If you've ever waited on a refill or couldn't schedule an appointment, you get it. That's the kind of stuff Optum is changing. They're using data and technology to integrate patient care, pharmacy, and everything else. So healthcare is connected, not complicated. What's that look like? Cheaper prescriptions that are easier to get and care that looks at the whole person, how you need it. Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Learn more at business.optum.com. As industries evolve faster than ever, companies need an environment that accelerates strategic growth.

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1:59That's Carol Masser. I'm Tim Stenevek. Yes. You can't get that burger anymore? Which burger? PJ Clark's. No, I think you can still. It's been a while, but my husband and I used to love to go. And then we've done that where we've made Bernays like leftover from a night of having steaks. And then you make a burger and you put on a burger. It's really good. It sounds great. It's really good. We've had a couple of weekends of burgers at home. Try it with some Bernays. That's like what you do in summer, you know, grill some burgers. You do. Some hot dogs. Yeah. I don't know. Do you guys know? No dogs in the house.

2:27All right. Nothing. We embrace dogs. Hey, let's talk trade, particularly between the U.S. and the European Union, because EU envoys are set to meet as early as this week to formulate a plan for measures to respond to a possible no-deal scenario with U.S. President Donald Trump, whose tariff negotiating position is seen to have stiffened ahead of that August 1st deadline. The overwhelming preference is to keep negotiations in Washington on track in a bid for an outcome to the impasse ahead of next month's deadline. We've got with us Dara O 'Brien, Minister for Transport, Climate and Energy and the Environment for the Republic of Ireland.

3:03He joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. Welcome. How are you? Thank you. I'm great. Great. Delighted to be here. We arrived into New York Saturday evening, so doing a bit of work down at the UN today on the Sustainable Development Goals. So gave the national statement on that. The pleasure to drop into Bloomberg today and meeting a lot of partners, business partners, and a lot of bilaterals on the political side between now and next Wednesday evening before I fly back to Dublin. But I'm over and back to the States a lot. Well, we're glad you made time for us on this trip. And we want to talk a little bit about trade and we'll talk about we'll talk about the U.N.

3:35stuff in a little bit. I'm curious how you're looking at this from the perspective of your country in the United States as being an important trading partner. There are so many U.S. businesses, whether they're pharmaceutical companies, whether they're tech companies with a large presence in Ireland. How are you looking at this from your perspective with trade tensions? Well, look, I think firstly, our trade negotiation is done, as you know, at an EU level. And obviously we have big input into that. And I think if you take a step back, take the EU and US trade, it's the largest trading relationship in the world.

4:06And it's worked well for both. And it's been positive. And if there are imbalances in certain areas, that can be certainly looked at through negotiations. So obviously our preference is that there's a negotiated settlement. The EU has to be ready to respond. We hope that that is not the case. I think from what I hear from colleagues who are directly involved as well, the negotiations in the background have been done in a very businesslike and positive way. Then if I look at Ireland, if we were to look at our own trading relationship with the United States is very much on a partnership basis. Like we've, I think, 350 million, or billion, excuse me, years invested by Irish firms in the United States.

4:45We're the sixth biggest investor in the US, employing over 200 ,000 people. and yes and we're very fortunate to have very significant u.s investment in ireland so that relationship is very about a trillion dollars a year between both the u.s and ireland alone and that relationship underpins tens of thousands of jobs on both sides of the atlantic good incomes for people good jobs and obviously ireland is used as an entry into the european union market which is a big market for u.s firms so like we're delighted we we host you know nine of the top 10 US firms on the tech side are European headquartered in Ireland.

5:25Indeed, you know, if we look at the pharma side, because our education system is very good, we've the highest level of third level graduates, we've a flexible workforce, we've a competitive tax regime, and we're still seeing that expansion. But I suppose what happens in this space is a lot of firms are holding off and making decisions around the uncertainty. And that's why getting to a conclusion I think is very important. A couple of things we want to touch on Dark. So when it comes to the sectoral tariff on pharmaceuticals in particular, what can Ireland take from the U.S.? Kind of what is your landing zone?

6:01Is it 5 percent? Is it 10 percent? Is it 20 percent? How do you think about it? Give us give us. Well, how I think about it, firstly, our minister for trade, who's our deputy prime minister, actually met with U.S. pharma firms just like in the last week um and that the the manufacturing of of pharmaceuticals has actually done really a lot of our product that comes out of our and is actually finished in the united states so the and they sold back into the united states but finished here so uh you know i think the imposition of any tariff on the pharma sector would not be would not be welcome and i think that's the landing zone even five percent well i suppose i'm i just acutely aware that i'm i'm not like obviously part of the Irish government that we're briefed as well on this.

6:43But I think the importance of pharma, not just in Ireland, but across the EU and indeed in the United States, where we have, you know, a good trading relationship on pharma, any change to that and that cost base is going to have an impact. So I don't want to sit on a number. I think really for pharma, we were, you know, it would be better if there were sectors that there were carve-outs, like aviation as well, which is a critically important one too, pharma also. So we just look, I suppose I don't want to speculate on what that landing zone would look like. Well, you mentioned aviation. This is a really important one.

7:16You are one of the EU member states most in favor of a softer response to U.S. tariffs. Yet our reporting suggests that the EU is preparing to potentially retaliate with tariffs on Boeing, for example, as well as possible digital services tax that will affect two big industries that are important to the Irish economy. If the EU retaliates, what will Ireland do to try to protect these industries? Well, I think what Ireland has done with EU colleagues is actually put forward the case for various sectors about how interconnected we are. If you take Boeing, for argument's sake, and I've met with Boeing, like Ireland is an Irish aviation firms are the largest customers of Boeing.

7:52We've, I think, about 900 planes on order with Boeing. It's, you know, we actually leasing an aircraft leasing is, and you've leasing not just of aircrafts, but of aircraft parts, like of engines and that. There's second hand planes, for argument's sake, that are refurbed that you could look at. They might be tariff twice. So it's a very, very complex sector. I think to be fair to the sector here in the United States as well, I've been able to explain that to colleagues here in the States and also at a European level. And it is a very big like Ireland would have the largest footprint of aircraft leasing pretty much in the world.

8:27So we have firms like Aircop that would have a very significant footprint here in the United States. So it was in their new office in Miami just earlier this year. So I just think on the aviation side, I suppose it's when you're looking at tariffs, like our belief, the European Union is tariffs are not a good thing full stop. So if you've got to start from that premise and then you've got to work back from that to see what's actually what's what's workable. Dara, we want to go where you kicked off. You're over at the UN. We think about sustainable development. At the same time, there's so much it seems to be around the globe going on in terms of development of data centers.

9:00How do we do that in a way that doesn't just wreak more havoc on our current climate? Yeah, I think, look, we in Ireland... And is there a global understanding that we need to do this safely? I think to be fair to the sector itself, like data and new data is where it's going to be at. So like the advancements in technologies are here and they will continue to advance even quicker than any of us would have ever imagined. If you look at AI, for everything that we do, our mobile phone, the screens in front of us here, You know, there's a data capture and there's data storage there. So data centers are here.

9:32What we've got to look at is how they can be more efficiently built and how energy is more efficiently used. So Ireland has actually been very successful at attracting data centers in, and we want to continue to do that. They are large energy users, though. So I think what we need to do is to be looking, and in fairness to the sector as well, is looking at, you know, the energy they use, what they consume, how that energy can be reused, the waste energy piece, and also linking up renewables. and there is a lot of interest within, not just interest, it's actually there are proposals within that space.

10:01So you would have green technology parks for argument's sake. So data centers that would have a base energy, but then also would use further energy for renewables. So I think it can be done. I don't think they conflict with each other. You say you're back and forth, come back. I will, I'd love to. I'd love to continue this conversation. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. Daryl O 'Brien, he's the Minister for Transport, Climate, Energy and the Environment for the Republic of Ireland. This is Business Week.

10:26Darragh O’Brien:Healthcare doesn't always work great. If you've ever waited on a refill or couldn't schedule an appointment, you get it. That's the kind of stuff Optum is changing. They're using data and technology to integrate patient care, pharmacy, and everything else. So healthcare is connected, not complicated. What's that look like? Cheaper prescriptions that are easier to get and care that looks at the whole person how you need it. Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Learn more at business.optum.com. Wise is the smart way to manage the currencies you need around the globe. When you send money abroad using your bank, you could get hit with hidden fees and exchange rate markups.

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