US retaliates against Sinn Féin for tentative anti-genocide moves

Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MLA Jonathan Buckley has suggested that the decision of by a US company to withdraw from investment in the North of Ireland was in response to Sinn Féin’s stance on so-called ‘Israel’s’ genocide in Palestine.

Addressing Sinn Féin’s economy minister Caoimhe Archibald at Stormont’s Committee for the Economy on Wed Jan 21, Buckley said he was raising a:

…serious concern that has been brought to me that the position taken by you and your party may have impacted that decision not to invest.

Sinn Féin boycotted the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations at the White House in March 2025 in response to US support for the Netanyahu regime’s mass slaughter in Gaza. They did, however, attend trade talks with US corporations. The party faced an enormous backlash for posing with Butcher Biden in March 2024, over four months into the war criminal’s arming of the genocide. Sinn Féin also met with Caterpillar, infamous for supplying demolition equipment used by the Zionist entity to destroy Palestinian homes.

White House-linked firm pulled out of 300 job investment

The trade talks this year included a meeting with American financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald. Buckley alleges it is this company that has withdrawn from the creation of 300 jobs in Northern Ireland as a result of Sinn Fein’s tentative moves towards reproaching ‘Israel’.

The DUP man attempted to put the decision in context by saying:

…on 9/11, Cantor Fitzgerald lost 650 employees who died in the World Trade Centre.

Now, if one were to follow basic moral logic, this should lead to the company approving of any move against the Zionist pseudo-state, given the terrorist regime specialises in destroying buildings and killing the innocent people inside. However, such thinking does not apply in the world of business, where only profit and the exercise of brutish power matters.

It seems likely that Cantor Fitzgerald’s decision may have been influenced by pressure from within the White House. US secretary of commerce Howard Lutnick is a former chairman and CEO of the financial services outfit. He was appointed to his current political role in February 2025.

For her part, Archibald did little to dispel Buckley’s claims. She was evasive and did not deny the points put to her, saying:

Companies make decisions about why they invest or don’t invest based on their own commercial interests, and I think that’s absolutely a matter for them and, in terms of political positions or otherwise that people might hold, that’s for individuals, it’s for parties to express those as they feel.

The correct response would have been to respond with pride and confirm what happened, as retaliation by the US is an indication that she’s doing at least something right. As Brexit and hostility to immigration shows, people are sometimes prepared to vote against their economic interests for an ideological position. Those examples are not noble causes, but taking an anti-genocide position is. A bolder stance on this would not only be morally correct, it would also be a vote-winner.

Archibald has been similarly ambiguous when dealing with Invest NI’s policy of funding genocide by funnelling money into the F35 warplane program, using careful language to tip-toe around the truth of the matter and evade responsibility.

Time to end vassal status – reject US bullying

Buckley’s position meanwhile appears to be that the US should get to set Stormont’s foreign policy. We apparently must please Mafia Don at all times, lest we be subject to retaliatory trade moves, which the colonial thug has been keen to deploy at every opportunity against others. As has been covered recently by the Canary, important aspects of Irish government policy are also being shaped by concerns over preserving favoured vassal status.

There are signs some are getting fed up with this shit, however. Canada, which faces potential invasion by the hegemon to its south, has now spoken out against the US-controlled world order. Its prime minister Mark Carney talked recently of a “rupture, not a transition” away from the current status quo. While not a moral stance, as Canada was happy to be a henchman of US imperialism while it benefited from it, this shows the path countries vassalized by Washington must take.

Workers in a company can all compete with each other to please their bosses, but while a handful may benefit, the collective will be worse off. Nations must do the same and band together against US abuse, rather than engage in a race to the bottom to win favour with a nihilistic and unreliable criminal.

Featured image via the Canary