Elon Musk, with son X, speaks to reporters alongside Donald Trump at the Oval Office in February. Volodymyr Zelenskiy is hectored by Donald Trump at the Oval Office in February. “Ireland feels like a small boat caught in a tempestuous storm,” Ipsos B&A chief executive Luke Reaper said, describing a “tense” nation looking outward to a complicated and “unsettling” world. “You didn’t congratulate us for the peace deal that president Trump made between Albania and Azerbaijan.”Beside him, Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev, whose country had been embroiled in conflict with Armenia, roared laughing. Trump circled back to his view, made plain in February’s Oval Office showdown, that Ukraine – the front line of Europe – “doesn’t have the cards”.

Source: The Irish Times December 20, 2025 15:01 UTC