US President Donald Trump has said he does not want "to do anything to hurt Ireland" but added that the trade relationship between the countries should be focused on "fairness".
Mr Trump levelled accusations against Ireland and the European Union during a bilateral meeting with Taoiseach Micheál Martin in the Oval Office.
The president raised the "massive" trade imbalance between the two countries and said Ireland is "of course" taking advantage of the US.
He accused the Government of "taking" US pharmaceutical companies through attractive taxation measures and criticised the EU's ruling that found that Apple owes Ireland billions of euro in taxes.
Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office: "There's a massive deficit that we have with Ireland and with other countries too, and we want to sort of even that out as nicely as we can, and we'll work together.
"But the deficit is massive."
Asked if Ireland was also taking advantage of the US, he said: "Of course they are.
"I have great respect for Ireland, for what they did and they should have done just what they did.
"But the United States shouldn't have let that happen. We had stupid leaders, we had leaders who didn't have a clue.
"All of a sudden Ireland has our pharmaceutical companies, this beautiful island of five million people has got the entire US pharmaceutical industry in its grasps."
Mr Trump told reporters that he loved Ireland and had received a large share of the Irish-American vote before adding: "We don't want to do anything to hurt Ireland, but we do want fairness and he understands that."
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Apple were 'treated very badly'
He said previous presidents had "lost big segments" of the US economy, adding that the "European Union treats us very badly".
"They sue our companies and win massive amounts of money. They sued Apple, won $17 billion and they use that for other reasons, I guess, to run the European Union," Mr Trump said.
"I'm not knocking it. They're doing what they should be doing, perhaps for the European Union, but it does create ill will - and as you know, we're going to be doing reciprocal tariffs so whatever they charge us with, we're charging them," he added.
Mr Trump said Apple had been "treated very badly", referring to an EU court ordering the company to pay back taxes in Ireland.
Mr Martin interjected to say "we fought with them" on the EU case.
"It's the European Union, isn't it? The European Union is going after our companies," Mr Trump said when asked if Apple should relocate from Dublin back to the US.
He said: "We have a problem in the European Union. They don't take our farm products. They don't take our cars.
"We take millions of cars, BMWs and Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagens and everything, we take millions of cars.
"I'm not happy with the European Union and we're going to win that financial battle."
'Two-way street'
The Taoiseach also highlighted a "two-way street" of investment between the nations in a bid to address the concerns around the US-Ireland trade imbalance raised by the president.
Mr Martin referenced Ryanair saying the airline is one of the largest buyers of Boeing equipment and that thousands of jobs in the US are in Irish firms.
"We've added value to America," he said.
"I understand where you are coming from fully," he added.
An article on the visit of the Taoiseach in today's edition of the Wall Street Journal says Ireland has the fourth biggest trade surplus of any country in the world - after China, Mexico and Vietnam.
Ireland is the EU country with the biggest trade surplus with the US at $85 billion (€78 million), according to the Wall Street Journal.
That means a country with a population of 5.4 million people has a bigger goods trade surplus with the US than Germany, one of the world's biggest exporters.
Ireland also has a bigger trade surplus than Taiwan or Japan has with the US, according to the same source.
The WSJ report says pharmaceutical exports by US companies based in Ireland surged by 42% last year to some $50 billion, according to US trade data.
The Taoiseach praised Mr Trump's work on "peace initiatives" for Ukraine and Gaza.
In response, the president said that what makes him angry is that the war in Ukraine would have never happened if he had been in office when it broke out.
Mr Trump said although the people dying are not from Ireland or the US, he wants to stop "2,000 people a week dying".
Mr Martin said: "The one thing we've learned in Ireland about the peace process that you've just spoken I recall back in the early 90s, when the first tentative steps to get peace in Ireland, people criticised people like John Hume, people like Albert Reynolds, the then taoiseach, and they kept going.
"The war in Ukraine is a devastating war on young people and I think that very simple straightforward narrative is to be commended.
"We all have children, we would be shocked at the prospect of young people losing their lives in that number, be they Ukrainian, be they Russian."
Mr Trump said that "we're working hard with Israel to see if we can solve the problem" after being asked about a proposed Irish bill to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements.
President Trump said that hostages taken in Gaza were "treated badly" and that 7 October "was a terrible thing".
He added: "We're working hard with Israel, we're working hard to see if we can solve the problem."
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Taoiseach notes 'steadfast' US-Irish friendship in speech
Mr Martin was the first EU leader to meet Mr Trump following the proposals for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine and the lifting of the US suspension of military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
The Taoiseach had said that any peace in the region had to be "fair and sustainable".
After the Oval Office meeting, Mr Martin travelled to the US Capitol building for the Friends of Ireland luncheon hosted by House Speaker Mike Johnson before returning to the White House for the traditional shamrock ceremony.
The Taoiseach will present the president with a bowl of shamrock as part of the centrepiece of the Government's major overseas diplomatic push in the run up to St Patrick's Day on 17 March.
Asked if he would be inviting Mr Trump to visit Ireland or giving him an additional gift on top of the shamrock bowl, Mr Martin told reporters: "The president is always welcome to visit Ireland and obviously we'll be engaging on that front."
