New US “Fort Trump” military base in Poland “confirmed”, says President Nawrocki

Sep 23, 2026 | Defence, 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.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki says that a planned new permanent US military base in Poland is “confirmed” because his American counterpart, Donald Trump, is “famous for keeping his word”. He also suggested that the new facility will be called “Fort Trump”.

Trump himself declared last week that “major progress” was being made towards establishing the base, saying it was thanks to the “bold leadership of my friend, Karol Nawrocki”, who is a conservative ally of the US president.

Meanwhile, earlier this week, a Polish deputy defence minister, Stanisław Wziątek, also expressed confidence that the new base would soon be confirmed and said that it could see the number of US troops stationed in Poland rise to around 15,000.

The US military presence in Poland has become a big issue this year following Washington’s unexpected last-minute decision in May to cancel the rotational deployment of almost 4,000 troops.

Shortly afterwards, Trump declared that he would deploy 5,000 additional troops to Poland. In June, Poland formally submitted a request for the US to establish a new permanent US military base on its territory.

In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, last week, Trump announced “major progress” in those plans and said that “if this happens, the location [of the base] will be announced very soon”. He called it a “historic step for our Great US/Polish Alliance”.

On Tuesday this week, speaking to Bloomberg during a visit to the US for the United Nations General Assembly, Nawrocki confirmed that plans for the base were at an advanced stage.

“The infrastructure is being chosen right now. Consultants from the US have already visited Poland,” he said. “I think that it’s hard for me to give specific dates, but I think that this matter is for sure confirmed because President Trump is famous for keeping his word.”

Nawrocki also expressed confidence that “President Trump will personally be able to participate in the inauguration of Fort Trump”. That name, Fort Trump, was first suggested in 2018 by Nawrocki’s predecessor, Andrzej Duda, when, during Trump’s first term, he sought a permanent US base in Poland.

 

Poland’s government, which regularly clashes with the opposition-aligned Nawrocki and has also at times had tense relations with the Trump administration, has not commented on the idea of naming the new base after the US president.

However, the government is keen for the project to move ahead, and has been doing much of the legwork on making it happen. Although Poland’s president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, his position is largely ceremonial, and it is the government that is responsible for implementing policy.

On Monday this week, deputy defence minister Stanisław Wziątek told broadcaster RMF that he was “convinced there is full agreement” on establishing the base, with the remaining question being the precise location.

Wziątek said that the announcement could be made before November’s midterm elections in the US, as Trump will be keen to encourage Polish Americans to vote Republican.

The deputy defence minister said that the base would be likely to host between 3,000 and 5,000 US troops, with 4,500 the “most realistic estimate, because that is the size of a brigade”.

In total, said Wziątek, Poland hoped to have “around 15,000” US soldiers in Poland, including the roughly 10,000 that have up until now been present on a rotational basis.

The minister admitted that the current rotational presence was lower, around 6,500-7,000, following the cancellation of May’s planned deployment. But he said that the figure should “soon” return to the previous higher level.

When asked about the cost to Poland of establishing the new permanent US base, Wziątek said it would “definitely be more than 15 billion zloty (€3.4 billion) but will depend on the level of involvement of the United States”.

The US has long been Poland’s most important security partner. In 2023, under President Joe Biden, it established its first permanent military garrison in Poland at Camp Kościuszko in the city of Poznań. The following year, a US missile defence base opened in Redzikowo on Poland’s northern Baltic coast.

This week, the mayor of Poznań, Jacek Jaśkowiak, told newspaper Fakt that his city was one of two locations being considered for the planned new US base. Recent Polish media reports have also identified the provinces of Lower Silesia and West Pomerania as potential locations.

While the Trump administration has chastised many NATO member states for failing to meet the alliance’s defence spending targets, it has hailed Poland, whose defence budget is one of NATO’s highest in relation to GDP, as a “model ally”.

Between 2021 and 2025, Poland was also the largest importer of arms in NATO. Around 44% of those purchases came from the US, including Abrams tanks, Patriot air defence batteries, and HIMARS rocket artillery.


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: Mikołaj Bujak/KPRP

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