US cuts all contact with Polish parliamentary speaker for “insulting Trump”

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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 US ambassador to Poland has announced that his country is cutting off all contact with the speaker of Poland’s parliament, Włodzimierz Czarzasty, due to his “outrageous insults” against President Donald Trump. Czarzasty recently accused Trump of violating international law.

In response, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk – whose ruling coalition includes Czarzasty’s party – told the ambassador that “allies should respect, not lecture, each other”.

On Thursday afternoon, US ambassador Thomas Rose issued a statement on social media platform X in which he declared that, “effective immediately, we will have no further dealings, contacts, or communications” with Czarzasty, who is the speaker of the Sejm, the more powerful lower house of Poland’s parliament.

Rose said that Czarzasty, with his “outrageous and unprovoked insults directed against President Trump[,] has made himself a serious impediment to our excellent relations with Prime Minister Tusk and his government”.

“We will not permit anyone to harm US–Polish relations, nor disrespect Donald Trump, who has done so much for Poland and the Polish people,” he added.

In response, Tusk published his own statement on X, in which he wrote: “Mr Ambassador Rose, allies should respect, not lecture, each other. At least this is how we, here in Poland, understand partnership.”

Czarzasty is one of the leaders of The Left, which is a junior partner in Poland’s ruling coalition. The 65-year-old political veteran, who in the 1980s was a member of Poland’s ruling communist party, has served as speaker of the Sejm since November.

Last week, Czarzasty received a letter from his US and Israeli counterparts – Mike Johnson, speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and Amir Ohana, speaker of the Knesset – asking him to join them in supporting the nomination of Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

On Monday this week, Czarzasty announced that he would not do so, saying that Trump “does not deserve” the award.

“In my opinion, President Trump is destabilising the situation in…the European Union, NATO, the United Nations and the World Health Organisation…by representing power politics and using force to pursue transactional policies,” said Czarzasty, pointing to Trump’s actions towards Greenland as an example.

“This violates the politics of principles and values, and often violates international law,” added Czarzasty, who noted that, during its history, “Poland has repeatedly been a victim” of systems in which force is used by “great powers to divide the world in subordinate spheres of influence”.

The speaker also noted Trump’s recent suggestion that NATO allies had not provided the US with frontline support, which caused anger in Poland, many of whose soldiers died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

However, he also added that “the Americans are our ally” and that Poles “do not have to choose between the United States and Europe”. However, a poll published this week found that a majority of Poles now believe that the US is no longer a reliable ally.

In response to today’s announcement by Rose, Czarzasty issues a statement saying that, while he “respects the USA as Poland’s key partner”, he “will not change my position” on Trump’s Nobel nomination. “In line with my values, I stood up for Polish soldiers.”

In further comments, carried by news website Wirtualna Polska, Czarzasty said there appeared to be a “coordinated action” against him.

He noted that yesterday, President Karol Nawrocki, a Trump ally who is aligned with Poland’s right-wing opposition, called a security meeting with the government to discuss Czarzasty’s alleged Russian contacts. The speaker denies having any such connections that would threaten national security.

After Rose’s announcement, Nawrocki’s spokesman, Rafał Leśkiewicz, wrote that Czarzasty “not only has trouble explaining his eastern [Russian] social-business contacts but is also demolishing Polish-American relations”.

“In the times of the [communist] Polish People’s Republic, the United States was the greatest enemy for the communists,” he added. “Times have changed, but the mentality of the post-communist Czarzasty has not.”

“Such a speaker of the Sejm was chosen by the current ruling coalition, a man who does not understand the weight and importance of alliances,” concluded Leśkiewicz.

This morning, before Rose had made his announcement, Rzeczpospolita, a leading daily, reported unnamed sources saying that Law and Justice (PiS), the main opposition party, had tried to tempt another of Tusk’s junior coalition partners, the centre-right Polish People’s Party (PSL), to defect and form a new government.

According to the newspaper, PiS told PSL that “the Americans want” a new administration in Poland that would be more friendly towards Washington.

Both PiS and Nawrocki (who was elected last year with the support of PiS) have pushed for Poland to have close ties with the Trump administration and have accused the government of harming that relationship, for example, when Tusk joined other European leaders in defending Denmark’s sovereignty over Greenland.

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/Flickr

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.