Poland’s President Duda meets Trump to discuss Ukraine and Gaza

Apr 18, 2024 | Politics

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda has held a private meeting with US presidential candidate Donald Trump at the latter’s residence in New York.

The pair discussed the war in Ukraine, the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and Duda’s recent proposal for NATO countries to spend 3% of GDP on defence, according to a statement from the Trump campaign. “President Trump is a big fan of Poland and of the Polish people,” they added.

Poland has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine and, ahead of the meeting, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who is an opponent of Duda, said that he hoped the president would use the opportunity to “very firmly raise the issue of clearly siding with the Western world, democracy and Europe”.

“It was a friendly meeting in a very nice atmosphere,” said Duda after the two-and-a-half-hour dinner meeting at Trump Tower on Wednesday evening, quoted by Polish broadcaster TVN.

Asked about whether the visit could harm Poland’s relations with President Joe Biden, Duda denied this, saying that it is “normal when a country has good relations with another country that it wants these relations to be the best with representatives of various sides of the political scene”.

Ahead of the meeting, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller likewise said that it is normal for “foreign government to engage with the nominees of major parties here, just as American diplomats and American leaders often engage with foreign opposition leaders”.

Last week, Trump hosted British foreign secretary David Cameron at his estate in Florida. In March, he also received Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban there.

“He [Duda] is my friend, and we had four great years together and we may have to do it again,” Trump told the media ahead of the meeting. “We’re behind Poland all the way…I have great respect for this country and I have great respect for the president.”

During Trump’s term in office he formed a close relationship with Duda, a conservative who has held Poland’s presidency since 2015. Duda’s current and final term as president ends in 2025, a few months after Trump would return office were he to win this year’s US presidential elections.

After the meeting, Duda’s aide Wojciech Kolarski, who was also in attendance, said that the “two friends [had] reminisced on the time when for four years they cooperated while holding presidential offices”, which was a “very fruitful [period] for Polish-US relations”.

During his current visit to the US, Duda has also met with UN Secretary-General António Guterres and he is subsequently scheduled to visit Canada, where he will meet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Duda’s decision to meet with Trump was welcomed even by some figures in Poland’s governing coalition, despite the fact that the president is at odds with the more liberal government in many other areas.

“It is a good idea,” deputy defence minister Paweł Zalewski told broadcaster RMF yesterday ahead of the meeting. “We need contact with the most important candidates, that is, Joe Biden and Donald Trump.”

Last month, Duda and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk jointly visited the White House to meet with Biden on the 25th anniversary of Poland’s accession to NATO.

Zalewski argued that the private nature of Duda’s meeting with Trump means that it “should in no way pose a problem for contact with Joe Biden”. But he also made clear a preference for Biden to win a second term.

“We would like Biden to have more support and better polling, because his involvement in the defence of Ukraine and the world order is consistent with Polish interests,” said Zalewski. “But it is Americans who choose their president.”

Defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz also said he hoped the meeting could be used to encourage support from Republicans in Congress for an aid package for Ukraine.


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Main image credit: Marek Borawski/KPRP

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