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Trump to Meet Varadkar at Home of Duty-Free Shops, Irish Coffee

Trump to Meet Varadkar at Home of Duty-Free Shops, Irish Coffee

(Bloomberg) -- On his way to check out his golf course in the Irish village of Doonbeg, Donald Trump will stop at the airport on Wednesday for a brief meeting with Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.

But not just any airport. The perfunctory encounter is most notable for its setting: Shannon Airport, which bills itself as the home of Irish coffee, duty-free shopping and the backdrop for a handful of diplomatic incidents.

The airport, situated on Ireland’s western coast outside Limerick, made its name in the 1940s as a way-station for the first trans-Atlantic flights from the U.S. Every U.S. president since John F. Kennedy has passed through its gates. The airport claims that Irish coffee was invented by its chef in 1942, and that it opened the first duty-free shop in the world in 1947.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the early front-runner in the Democratic contest to challenge Trump’s re-election in 2020, so often visited Shannon’s chapel and shopped Ray-Bans at the duty-free that his picture hung on the wall. Current Vice President Mike Pence has greeted deploying U.S. troops in the airport’s lounge.

Yeltsin’s Nap

Shannon’s tarmac was the site of an infamous missed meeting in 1994 between former Russian President Boris Yeltsin and former Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds. The Irish leader waited at the base of the steps to Yeltsin’s plane at the head of a red carpet with a band ready to greet the Russian leader. Yeltsin never deplaned. A fabled drinker with health problems, he apparently slept through the meeting.

Yeltsin later denied an official Russian government explanation that he had been ill and was advised to rest.

The U.S. president has his own experience with the airport.

On a previous stopover in Shannon on his way to Doonbeg in 2014, Trump -- at the time just a billionaire real-estate developer and reality-TV star -- was greeted by Ireland’s then-Finance Minister Michael Noonan, who brought with him a harpist, singer, violinist and red carpet. The welcome was so over-the-top that many Irish citizens regarded it with embarrassment.

Trump’s meeting with Varadkar, Ireland’s first gay prime minister and the son of an immigrant, may be less warm. The encounter is sandwiched between Trump’s state visit to the U.K. and a trip to Normandy on Thursday to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. And tensions are suddenly rising between the U.S. and Ireland.

Brexit Warnings

One point of conflict is Brexit. Trump has encouraged the U.K. to split from the EU with or without a deal to ease its exit. A so-called hard Brexit may mean that the U.K. has to build customs checkpoints on Ireland’s open border with Northern Ireland.

Leaders in Dublin have warned that hampering the flow of people and goods across the border could jeopardize Northern Ireland’s hard-won peace.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department last month added Ireland to a watch list of countries with currency and economic policies that may confer unfair advantages to their companies. Ireland is pushing back, arguing Treasury’s criteria don’t sufficiently take into account trade in services and U.S. job creation.

There’s also personal politics. On the eve of Trump’s arrival, the Irish Times reported that during a March visit to Washington Varadkar sought out and met with both former President Barack Obama, whom Trump treats as a nemesis and still regularly criticizes, and Biden.

Shannon airport officials are bracing for anti-Trump protests organized by environmental, anti-war and civil rights activists.

But Trump will likely enjoy a friendlier climate in Doonbeg. His top-rated Trump International Golf Links resort, with views of the Atlantic ocean, is a major employer and economic engine for the area.

To contact the reporters on this story: Margaret Talev in Washington at mtalev@bloomberg.net;Dara Doyle in Dublin at ddoyle1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Joshua Gallu

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.