Separately, the UK reached its own deal, accepting a tariff of 10 per cent on its exports to the US. While that threat was apparently lifted at Davos, there can be no certainty that fickle US decision-makers won’t renew these tariff threats. Almost half of the EU imports of US services come through Ireland, so there is no way we could escape such an EU action. Imposing penalties on services imports is much trickier than on goods imports, Customs officers don’t police the optical fibre connections with the US. Given their serious market power, these companies would eventually try and recoup losses from EU trade measures through higher prices in the EU.

Source: The Irish Times January 26, 2026 08:00 UTC