Trump invites Poland’s President Nawrocki to join Board of Peace

Jan 19, 2026 | Defence, Featured, Politics

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

The office of Polish President Karol Nawrocki has confirmed that he has been invited to join Donald Trump’s new International Board of Peace.

The US president has invited dozens of world leaders to join the body, including Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko, the presidents of Russia and Belarus – two countries that Poland accuses of mounting ongoing “hybrid warfare” operations against it.

Early on Monday afternoon, Polish news website Onet cited sources saying that Nawrocki, who is a close ally of Trump, had been invited to join the board. That followed a public announcement by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, another Trump ally, that he had accepted an invitation.

Later on Monday, Nawrocki’s chief foreign policy aide, Marcin Przydacz, announced at a press briefing that he “can confirm that President Karol Nawrocki received an invitation from Donald Trump to participate in the work of this council”.

He added that the issue “will be the subject of discussions with the American side in the near future”. Regarding what decision Nawrocki would make, Przydacz said that it would be communicated to Washington before being announced publicly.

 

The Board of Peace was established as part of Trump’s efforts to bring peace in Gaza. On Friday, he called it “the Greatest and Most Prestigious Board ever assembled at any time, any place”.

Its seven-man executive board includes US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump allies Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, as well as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and World Bank President Ajay Banga.

However, reports suggest that Trump has broader aims for the new board than just Gaza, seeing it as a vehicle for pursuing his foreign policy elsewhere.

The Times of Israel on Sunday published the full text of the board’s charter – which was attached to invitations sent to world leaders – and notes that it does not mention Gaza at all. Bloomberg also reported that Trump has asked countries that want a permanent spot on the board to pay $1 billion.

On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Putin had received an offer to join the board and would now seek further clarification from the Americans about the details.

Belarus also announced that it had been invited to become a founding member of the board and said that it was “ready to take part, taking into account and hoping that this organisation will expand its scope and authority far beyond the mandate proposed in the initiative”.

Putin and Lukashenko’s potential membership of the board represents a significant problem for Nawrocki. The Polish president is ardently anti-Russia, as are most Poles. Meanwhile, Russia has in recent years carried out a campaign of sabotage, cyberattacks and disinformation.

Belarus has created a migration and security crisis on Poland’s eastern border by encouraging and assisting tens of thousands of migrants – mainly from the Middle East, Asia and Africa – to try to illegally cross. Poland and its EU partners have described those actions as part of the Russian-led “hybrid war”.

When announcing Nawrocki’s invitation from Trump, Przydacz acknowledged that “politicians with whom the Polish president is in no way aligned are also being invited” to join the board, reports broadcaster TVN.

“Vladimir Putin is certainly such a politician,” he added. “We have extremely different assessments and opinions of the international situation, and extremely different goals regarding international policy. However, in diplomacy, it is never the case that you can only talk to those with whom you agree 100%.”

Przydacz also noted that Poland recently received an invitation from the US to attend this year’s G20 summit, which was “considered a great success” even though Russia is also part of the G20.

Rafał Chwedoruk, a political scientist at the University of Warsaw, told Onet that the invitation to join the board is Nawrocki’s “first serious external test” since becoming president last August.

He noted that any discussions over the issue would have to involve the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, with which Nawrocki, who is aligned with the right-wing opposition, is regularly in conflict.

Poland’s president is traditionally mainly a figurehead in foreign policy, with the government making major decisions and running day-to-day affairs. However, Nawrocki has sought to break the mould and play a great role in both domestic and international affairs.

After news of Nawrocki’s invitation was confirmed, Tusk took to social media to remind the president that accession to international organisations requires the consent of the government and ratification by parliament.

“The government will be guided solely by the interests and security of the Polish state,” wrote the prime minister. “And we will not let anyone play us.”

Tusk, a former president of the European Council, leads a government that is generally pro-EU and has frosty relations with Trump. Earlier this month, he joined other European leaders in issuing a joint statement calling on the US to respect Denmark’s sovereignty over Greenland.

Nawrocki, by contrast, told the BBC in an interview shortly afterwards that “discussion should remain a matter between the prime minister of Denmark and President Trump”. He also declared that Trump is the only leader capable of protecting Europe from the threat of Russia.


Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: White House (under CC BY 3.0 US)creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

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