Petříček will meet with Pompeo on February 22nd. It will be the first official meeting between Foreign Ministers of the Czech Republic and the US since 2012. As put by the Foreign Ministry, his visit aims to support strengthening bilateral relations and to follow up on last year’s visit of then-Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Energy Secretary Rick Perry in Prague.
Petříček also has on his schedule meetings with the National Security advisor to Donald Trump John Bolton and USAID chief Mark Green. He is due to visit the US Departments of Security and Commerce, representatives of both Czech and American companies and Czech compatriots living in the US.
High on Petříček’s agenda will be a potential meeting between Czech PM Andrej Babiš and Donald Trump. Petříček believes that Babiš’s reception at the White House could significantly help improve Czech-US bilateral relations. There is a chance that the meeting will take place in the coming months.
As reported by Hospodářské noviny, the recent Huawei scandal opened doors to Washington for Czech politicians. The Czech National Cyber and Information Security Agency issued a warning against the use of both software and hardware of Huawei and ZTE. Protection against Chinese technologies is one of the main topics for Trump’s administration.
