One of Donald Trump’s key economic advisers has said the United States wants to “emulate Ireland” under the president-elect’s corporate tax policies.
Stephen Moore said the US had learned a lesson in business development and competitiveness from Ireland.
Mr Moore warned last week that a “flood of companies” would leave Ireland when Mr Trump implemented his new tax policy.
Government ministers have been quick to play down the danger of American companies fleeing Ireland, stressing that firms are attracted to the country for a number of reasons, not just the favourable corporate tax rate.
Speaking yesterday, Mr Moore said: “We want to emulate Ireland. You have one of the lowest, if not the lowest, business tax rates of all.
“We want to be competitive with Ireland. We’ve learned that low taxes are a good way to stimulate development, so we’re very excited about this idea.
“We do think that a lot of the companies that have left the United States will come back and they will come back from China and from Canada, Mexico and come back from Ireland.”
He said lowering the corporate tax rate to 15pc was necessary to bring jobs back to the US. He said: “We need to do this, we need to bring back the jobs to Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
“We need to bring back the jobs that have left. I think overall the lesson that we’ve learned is that a good way to stimulate more business investment is to cut our business tax rate and we learned it from Ireland.”
Mr Trump’s aide also said the new administration was aiming to drastically change the economic landscape in the US. He said a lack of competitiveness had damaged the US economy.
“We’ve lost a lot of manufacturing, we’ve lost a lot of plants, most of them have gone to places in Mexico and China. We just haven’t been competitive in the United States, we’ve had very high taxes, we’ve had strangling regulations, we’ve got crazy climate change policies.
“All of that is going to change in America. We’re going to start producing things again in America and making things again,” he said.
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