This weekend, Micheál Martin is preparing for one of the most difficult challenges of his career: navigating the alligator swamp of Washington and emerging with all his limbs, and the future of the Irish economy, intact and in working order.

Last year, Martin sweated and grinned his way through nearly an hour in the Oval Office with a genial Donald Trump. The President was bonhomie personified throughout the day’s several engagements. But the times are such that an air of menace and threat was never absent. Trump’s administration seems to work like a medieval court, where all depends on the mood of the king. Who knows what will be the royal humour come Tuesday?

This week, the Taoiseach got some advice from President Catherine Connolly – who effectively urged him to call out the American assault on Iran as illegal and wrong.

Connolly did not specifically mention the US or Israel but her criticism of the Government for failing to condemn the attacks on Iran, although implied, was unmistakable. That is certainly how it was viewed in Government Buildings.

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Rather than adopt the meek silence that was customary whenever Michael D Higgins let fly, the Government instead answered back. “It is important to recall that responsibility for international affairs rests with the Government,” its spokesman said.

Just as Connolly’s message was clear, so the riposte was also unambiguous: butt out. It is an interesting development in relations between the Head of State and the Executive, you may say.

But it’s worth considering what Connolly proposes. She was, after all, elected with a thumping majority.

There are two schools of thought on her side of the argument. One is that the Taoiseach should refuse to go to Washington.

“Would it not be more appropriate and indeed effective for the Government Ministers led by An Taoiseach to march down O’Connell Street in the St Patrick’s Day parade under a peace banner?” asked one letter writer to The Irish Times.

[ Catherine Connolly criticises ‘violations of international law’ in Middle EastOpens in new window ]

The other suggestion is that the Taoiseach should go to the White House but use the opportunity to essentially bollock the president of the United States. Is that what people want their political leader to do?

I doubt it. Most people understand there are questions of self-interest here. Not to mind wondering what any denunciation of the US by Ireland would actually achieve. Perhaps there are viable arguments that a high-profile protest by Ireland could trigger meaningful positive outcomes in the Middle East; if so, I haven’t heard anyone making them.

There is no need here to recite the economic importance to Ireland of US companies, of inward investment, or the corporation tax revenues. Except to say: without them, or even if their presence began to be downgraded and downscaled, we would have a very different country.

This is, first and foremost, a concern for the hundreds of thousands of jobs in US companies and the local economies that in turn depend on those jobs. But it’s also a concern for the country as a whole, given the extent to which our public services are funded from corporation tax revenues. And yes – the NGOs, universities and political parties demanding that the Government criticise the US might find their State -provided budgets sharply reduced if US investment plummeted.

Of course, it is silly to suggest that if Martin was snippy with Trump that the US multinationals would disappear in a huff, taking their corporation tax revenues with them.

[ President’s condemnation of Iran war ‘violations’ puts pressure on Taoiseach before US tripOpens in new window ]

But it is just as dumb to suggest that Ireland’s painstakingly built soft power in the US, the carefully tended links between the two countries of which the St Patrick’s Day events are only the most visible manifestation, the openness to US businesses and the willingness to bend over backwards to accommodate them, has not played a huge part in the multinational corporation tax bonanza.

There are perfectly legitimate arguments about how those tax revenues are used and distributed, for sure. But the view that we should risk them by political decisions is not one that would get a great hearing from voters. Which means, in turn, they have to be protected.

Foreign policy, it is said, is a marriage of a country’s values and its interests. In Ireland, our political debate has a tendency to talk only about our values, and never about our interests. The demands from parties across the Dáil that the Taoiseach should not go to the White House or should go and criticise Trump are a classic example of this. It’s not that Labour and the Social Democrats and the rest have carefully weighed up interests vs values and come down in favour of the latter – they don’t appear to have thought about our interests at all.

By all means, make the argument against the visit, or that Martin should go and stick it up to Trump: but you have to, as part of that, consider the consequences. Nobody ever does that, though.

Sinn Féin’s position – that Mary Lou won’t go but the Taoiseach should – at least shows some appreciation of the responsibilities that come with office. Though whether taoiseach Mary Lou would be welcome to the Trump White House, having announced she was boycotting a party to which she was not yet invited, is something we may never find out. We do know, though, that the president is a man who holds a grudge.

I wonder if Sinn Féin suspects – as I do – that Irish voters will never back for Taoiseach someone who says they will tell the White House to b***er off.

So Martin will tread carefully through the Washington minefield, seeking to ensure Trump understands that Ireland is a friend, while reserving the right to differ on some issues. That will be difficult to execute, and unpopular in some quarters. But it is probably what is required of anyone who sits in the office of the taoiseach.

© The Irish Times