Polish President Andrzej Duda has said that the alliance between Poland and the U.S. must be strong whoever is in the White House and that he will always act in the spirit of that alliance.
Duda was reacting to a provocative post from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who took to X to write that Duda had once claimed that President Trump “keeps his word.”
Tusk mocked this phrase by adding a quote from Trump taken out of context, which had the former president saying: “I will encourage Russia to attack NATO member states.” Tusk then questioned Duda, writing: “Maybe this should be the subject of a meeting of the Cabinet Council, Mr. President (Duda)?”
Tusk has not hidden that he did not like Duda calling a meeting of the Cabinet Council, which is a body where the president sets the agenda to be discussed with the whole government. Duda called a meeting for Feb. 13 on public investment plans of the Tusk government.
Responding to Tusk’s post, Duda said that “offending half of America’s political scene does not serve either the security or economic interests of our country.”
Tusk had earlier in the week attacked Republican senators for voting against a package of aid to Ukraine, saying that former U.S. President Reagan “must be turning in his grave” and accusing the Republicans of undermining the security of Central Europe.
Both Duda and Tusk were reacting to Donald Trump having said at a public meeting that he had once spoken to the head of a major European state to encourage all NATO members to meet the 2 percent of GDP target. He provocatively said he would not protect member states that failed to meet that obligation, and went further still by saying that he would encourage Russia to “do as they want” with such non-paying members.
Former PiS Prime Minister Beata Szydło also commented on Trump’s remarks, saying that they were rhetorical jousting and that far more important is the fact that the head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, has said that Russia will be a threat to NATO for many years, and yet the arms industry in European NATO states is virtually non-existent and needs rebuilding fast.
