US signals it will maintain military presence in Poland

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The US has signalled it will maintain a military presence in Poland despite emerging tensions over Ukraine, following a meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda.

The White House wrote on X that Trump had “reaffirmed” the close alliance between Warsaw and Washington following a short meeting between the two leaders in Maryland on Saturday.

The US president also praised Poland for its “commitment to increase their military spending”. The central European country has earmarked 4.7 per cent of its GDP on defence — the highest level within Nato, but still shy of the 5 per cent target that Trump wants members to hit.

Duda told reporters on Saturday there was “no fear that the American presence in Poland will decrease” and instead it should be “assumed that it will tighten”.

The US now has about 10,000 troops in Poland, according to the state department, and last year opened its first permanent missile base in the country. In 2022, Congress approved $288mn for Poland “to build defensive capabilities to deter and defend against an increased Russian threat and support military capabilities Poland has or will provide to Ukraine”.

Trump’s decision to begin negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine, without inviting Kyiv or the US’s European allies to the talks, has unsettled Poland and other countries on Nato’s eastern flank.

Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, said last week that there could be no decision on Ukraine without Ukraine at the table. However, he has also urged European leaders to continue to co-operate despite tensions with the US, saying: “There can be no place for ‘either/or’ — the European Union or the United States.”

Duda and Tusk spoke on the sidelines of the Conservative Political Action Conference held at the National Harbor in Maryland.

Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski met US secretary of state Marco Rubio at the event, saying afterwards that he had “the impression that the United States was committed to lasting peace”.

Rubio said the meeting had allowed him to stress the “need for Nato allies to increase defence investment without delay”.