Trump calls for Irish reunification during visit to his Doonbeg golf course

Trump calls for Irish reunification during visit to his Doonbeg golf course DARLENE SUPERVILLE AND JILL LAWLESS DUBLIN, IRELAND THE ASSOCIATED PRESS PUBLISHED 16 MINUTES AGO Open this photo in gallery: U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Ireland's Prime Minister Micheál Martin at Farmleigh House in Dublin, on Saturday. Trump says a united Ireland would be a ‘fantastic thing.’ JULIA DEMAREE NIKHINSON/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS COMMENTS SHARE SAVE FOR LATER Listen to this article Learn more about audio Log in or create a free account to listen to this article. U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday that a unified Ireland would be “fantastic,” wading into a complex and politically charged subject during a weekend visit to a major golf tournament at his Irish golf course. At a meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin in Dublin, Trump said he would love to see the reunification of the Republic of Ireland with the U.K.’s Northern Ireland. “I don’t want to cause any problems but I’d love to see it unified,” Trump said. “It’s going to happen eventually. It may as well happen now. “I think it would be a fantastic thing,” he said, adding that “the U.K. will have something to say about it, obviously.” Competing visions of Northern Ireland – whether it’s Irish or British – drove decades of violence in Northern Ireland that left some 3,600 people dead. Previous American presidents have avoided commenting directly on the subject, even those, like Joe Biden, with strong emotional ties to Ireland. When Ireland, long dominated by its bigger neighbour Britain, became a self-governing Roman Catholic-majority country a century ago, a six-county region in the north with a Protestant majority remained part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland was split between two main communities: nationalists – most of them Catholic – who desired union with the rest of Ireland, and largely Protestant unionists, who wanted to stay British. Tensions eventually exploded in the Troubles, three decades of violence involving paramilitary groups on both sides and British troops. A 1998 peace accord that the U.S. was instrumental in striking largely ended the violence, but left Northern Ireland’s ultimate status unresolved. During the same visit, Trump told reporters that Canada was keen to reach a trade deal with the United States and that an agreement could come “fairly soon,” while repeating complaints that Canada had treated U.S. farmers unfairly and should remove…