Polish President Karol Nawrocki accused Donald Tusk’s government of weakening Poland’s position with Washington as he began a visit to the United States, saying his priority was to secure a permanent American military presence in Poland.
Nawrocki, who is in the United States at the invitation of President Donald Trump, is expected to attend the UFC Freedom 250 gala at the White House and hold meetings with Trump, American politicians, and members of the Polish community.
Before those meetings, the president attended Mass at the Polish Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady Queen of Poland and St. Maximilian Kolbe in Silver Spring, Maryland. Speaking to reporters afterward, he said Poland’s “strategic goal” remained the stationing of US troops in the country on a permanent basis.
Nawrocki said the relationship he had built with Trump had created an opening for Poland, but argued that the government in Warsaw was not moving quickly enough to turn it into concrete results.
“This is the main task for Polish journalists, for the Polish public opinion, to ensure that what is being established at the highest political level, thanks to the excellent relations between the two presidents, is implemented by the government, and we have big problems with this,” he said, as cited by wpolityce.
The president pointed to “problems” in the conduct of Prime Minister Donald Tusk and delays to the proposed Fort Trump military base in Poland, and said the issue had been raised during his talks with Trump last year.
“This was also the subject of my conversations with President Trump on Sept. 3. We agreed that President Trump is ready to invest in Fort Trump in Poland,” Nawrocki said.
He argued that the government’s financial position and policy priorities had made the project harder to advance, singling out Finance Minister Andrzej Domański and accusing the administration of failing to make use of a favorable diplomatic moment.
“And the feasibility of these tasks, due to the dramatic situation of public finances, caused by Minister Domański, and the implementation of even 100 of the current government’s demands, is simply poor. If there were a government able to take advantage of this favorable situation, which has emerged in the relationship between the two presidents, we would be much further ahead. I hope I can mobilize the Polish government to take advantage of the establishment of these relations at the highest level,” Nawrocki said.
The president was also asked whether he should travel to Washington with Tusk or Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, as Andrzej Duda once did with Tusk for a meeting with Joe Biden.
Nawrocki rejected the suggestion, saying Sikorski’s foreign policy approach was making his work harder rather than easier.
“Minister Sikorski really wants to come in, Mr. Editor, but Minister Sikorski must realize that the policy he is pursuing, which is mainly the result of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, is more of a hindrance than a help,” he said.
He added, “It is not the president’s role to improve the image of the prime minister after the statements of the prime minister, the marshal, and certain gestures.”
Nawrocki said questions about the state of Polish-American relations should be directed not at him, but at those he accused of damaging ties with Washington.
“That is, I think the editor should formulate these questions, out of concern for Polish-American relations, not at me, because I’m doing my job, but at those who behaved irresponsibly and destroyed the relationships that I managed to repair. I managed to repair them thanks to the wisdom of the Polish nation, which elected a president who saw a strong transatlantic course,” he said.
