Tusk’s Cabinet Reshuffle Could Boost US-Poland Cooperation

“Why do you think Prime Minister Donald Tusk has chosen now to reshuffle his cabinet”?

Well, a couple of variables. One, his candidate lost the race for president. They hadn’t counted on that. Their whole strategy was to have their ally in, so this impasse, where the President blocks legislation and blocks key appointments, is over, but they lost. Karol Nawrocki is coming in, and Rafał Trzaskowski is not. So that’s one blow.

Secondly, there has been tension within the coalition. This is not exactly a secret. There were a couple of meetings, I think, between the Marshall of the Sejm, Szymon Hołownia, with Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the major opposition group (PiS). Obvious tensions within the coalition. So Tusk is doing what politicians do, trying to reboot his government and his coalition, to answer some of the political problems. And that’s completely normal and democratic.

The problem is that Polish politics is deeply divided, and the coalition has been more than an alliance of convenience. They agree on a lot, but it is an alliance of different groups, and not all. Not all of them are doing well. Plus, the hard right in Poland, to the right of the Law and Justice party, is gaining strength in the polls. I mean, Konfederacja is an odd party, right-wing on cultural issues, but also a kind of libertarian party. But there’s a new party to the right of that called Konfederacja Korony Polskiej, and that’s headed by Grzegorz Braun, who first came to Parliament by using a fire extinguisher in the parliament building, against a menorah that was lit for Hanukkah. So he’s a performative anti-Semite. What’s he doing? Attacking a menorah, and he’s running a party, so you have Polish politics may be shifting to the right, and it’s very polarized. That’s all the bad news.

Now the good news is that, unlike American politics, Poles seem to be united on some very key issues, including Russia. They don’t much like Putin. Ukraine, they’ve got some differences with the Ukrainian government, but they think Ukraine’s defeat would be a defeat for them. Ukraine’s victory would be a strategic plus for Poland. And I think they’re right. They agree about NATO. They want it. They agree about the United States. They want the alliance.

There are differences about the EU, but PiS is not anti-EU; they’re just more focused on the EU as a confederation of nations, not a federal state. Okay, let them fight that out now.

Recently, a bipartisan Polish parliamentary delegation came to Washington, spent five full days, that is, they had the liberal platformer party, the Law and Justice Party, PSL, and Poland 2050, but this was a multi-party group, and they were speaking with one voice on key issues.

Moreover, the delegation was senior. It included, from PiS, the person who’s going to be President Nawrocki’s foreign policy adviser, Marcin Przydacz, and Pavel Koval, who’s the head of the Foreign Relations Committee, plus Mr. Chairman Andrzej Grzyb, who’s head of the National Defense Committee.

So this is a senior group, and despite all the turbulence in Polish politics, which I’ve tried to describe, they were, as the saying goes, on message, and it didn’t seem forced. I spent a lot of time with these guys, and they seemed sincere about getting the Americans and the Trump administration, in particular, in the right place, on Ukraine and on cooperation with Poland and on security for Europe.

So Polish politics is rough, but there is an underlying strategic consensus in Poland that was on display by some very senior people, which was frankly impressive. They were a solid group. So you ask about Polish politics, and you’re going to get a long answer. And it’s important to remember the underlying consensus and not just without the bloody-minded partisanship.

Do you think the change in the composition of the Polish is going to increase the potential for cooperation with the US?

I don’t see that there’ll be much of a change in the ability of the poles to cooperate, because Americans would be able to work with any conceivable Polish government, other than one of the very far-right, which might not be interested in support for Ukraine, or NATO, for that matter. But sort of 85% of the Polish political spectrum is solid, maybe even closer to 90% solid on transatlantic issues. That’s a first answer.

If you want to go a little bit deeper, there’s a question as to whether they’ll be any changes in the people we’ve been dealing we Americans have been dealing with. I don’t think so.

The foreign minister is going to be double-headed as a deputy prime minister, but that’s so he can get the EU relations portfolio under his belt. Within the Polish government, the defense minister, but especially the foreign minister Radosław Sikorski, are well able to deal with the Americans. Sikorski was at AEI (American Enterprise Institute) in Washington for a while. He knows us well, fluent in English. Knows the American mentality, and he can play within that space very skillfully.

Also Marcin Przydacz, President Nawrocki’s future foreign affairs advisor, is also very skilled, good at working with the Americans. Smart guy, fluent English, and somebody who is well-known in Washington, particularly in Trump world, so is Radek Sikorski. So I think the opportunities are there. The next variable is what US economic policy is going to be and whether the arms trade back and forth is going to be subject to tariffs, and whether it will be a casualty of tariffs, which is a much more complicated issue.

“President Trump announced last week a partnership with NATO to directly sell greater numbers of US arms to European allies, who in turn will use these to support Ukraine. Does this present opportunities for Poland to build even closer military cooperation with the United States? And will this change US-Poland cooperation on support for Ukraine?”

I think that the European countries that are most likely to purchase expensive American equipment and send it to Ukraine are the Germans and some of the others, not so much the Poles. The interesting question is whether or not US-European defense industry cooperation can be somehow exempted, grandfathered, or carved out of any trade difficulties we have. That’s important, and this is complicated on both sides. What is the tariff regime going to look like? What is the EU defense industry’s industrial policy going to look like? Well, how much space will there actually be for co-production and technology transfer? And both sides have to do a lot of work to make this work.

The Poles are already doing some co-production arrangements with Ukraine, and they’re not the only Europeans, but the Poles have a certain advantage in Ukraine, similarity of language and culture, and the Poles know Ukraine pretty well. There are some political difficulties, but Polish business is hoping to work with the Ukrainians, and no wonder. But this gets very complicated and into specific areas of cooperation.

The Ukrainians have something everybody wants, which is the technological base for rapid development of drones. Yeah, my sense is that they’re better at it than anybody else, because wartime pace is different than peacetime pace. We’re all on peacetime pace. They’re on wartime pace. They’re going to run circles around us. And the Ukrainians need capital, and what we can offer, which is scale; they can offer technology. Can we marry this up, and then the Western countries are going to be all competing to get the technology. The Ukrainians are going to be looking for the best deals.

“Do you see Poland requesting an expansion of the US presence in the country?“

Oh, no question about it! One of the issues deeply on the minds of the parliamentary delegation that was here was the US military presence. The US has about 10,000 troops. That is a very big deal. During my time as ambassador to Poland, the Poles regarded it as a big deal that we were willing to put in an anti-missile defense base. That was a big deal. Now that’s just sort of spare change.

There are serious US military assets in Poland; the Poles want them to stay there. The Trump administration is doing a general review of its force posture, and there will probably be some drawdowns in Europe. But the question is, will we draw down in Poland? I think it would be ill-advised to do so. And I think we should stay in Poland. We should stay in Romania. Either we’re serious about defense of Europe or we’re not, but I think there’ll be some drawdown, maybe in Germany, but this will be played out.

“An area of cooperation between Poland and the United States has been European energy security. Do you see this as an area of future cooperation, and how do you think Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and US trade tariffs might affect this?“

Let’s just say for the record that the Poles were right about Nord Stream. But instead of just folding their arms and complaining about it for years, they went out and prepared for the day when Russia would put the squeeze on them, and they succeeded.

It was a great moment in policymaking. When the Russians cut off the gas, and you are in a position to say, “We got this.” Which is exactly what happened. The previous government, the Conservative government, gave Piotr Naimski, someone I’ve known for a long time, a kind of carte blanche as their energy point person to diversify Poland away from Russian natural gas, and he did it.

Now Poland wants to take the next big step and become a gas hub. And based on their own infrastructure. They’ve got pipelines and they could do it. They would love to buy American gas. That’s a natural area of cooperation, because Trump wants to sell gas. This could work. The Poles are also interested in nuclear. That could work. The US wants to sell it. So this is an area of cooperation, and the Poles love the idea. Plus, if you’re trying to convince the Trump administration that it has a stake in your country, appeals to common values are nice, but with Trump World, appeals to common business interests may be more effective.

“How do you perceive Poland’s place within Europe? Do you think a change of government in Warsaw would impact EU-Poland relations? And how might that affect the dynamic between Poland and the United States?“

Well, the question is how strong this government will be and how capable it will be of working with the President, and then is the President willing to work with this government in the areas on the areas in which they already agree. So that’s a political question outside of the government reshuffle. The government reshuffle will either make for a stronger coalition, which is what you want, or a weaker Coalition, which would be a problem.

Now, back up a little bit. Poland was right about Russia. They’re not the only ones. The Poles were right about Russia. The Romanians were right about Russia. The current Czech government was right about Russia. But the Poles are the big country. And not only were they right about Russia, they’re known to have been right in Berlin, in Paris, in Brussels, and in London, particularly in Berlin. The Poles are poised to step up now. They have not taken a leadership role in this Anglo-French-led coalition of the willing, and the Poles are pretty clear that they’re reluctant to send troops to Ukraine for various understandable reasons. But they need to step up if NATO membership for Ukraine is off the table because of the Americans, which it seems to be, at least for the time being. This may change, but if it is now, then arrangements like the Anglo-French Coalition of the Willing may be key in designing actual security. And the Poles really want to be part of that, and they should.

They’re poised to do it economically. They’re not a frontier European country yet, but they’re no longer a backwater. This is not a poor country. They’re rapidly growing — fast. Much faster than Germany and faster than almost anybody else in Europe.

And speaking as an American, it is in the US national interest that Poland step up, because we naturally tend to see things in a similar way, about European security, about the Russians. (We being the Americans) You know, of previous Republican and most Democratic administrations, the Trump administration, maybe too. But it’s a good thing for Poland to be upfront. It wouldn’t matter if there weren’t a big war in Europe as much, but there is a big war in Europe. That’s the reality. Poland is on the front lines. They have the intellectual capital to get this and every incentive to get it right. Frankly, their judgment on Russia and Ukraine is pretty good.

“You mentioned Poland’s economy is growing, and a big driver of that is technology. Do you think there is room for the United States and Poland on tech policy?”

It’s already there. There are a lot of US tech giants like Google that have big operations in Poland, and that’s going to grow. One of the stupid last decisions of the Biden administration was to put Poland in a lesser category for chip export licensing. What were they thinking? What’s the matter with these guys? It was stupid. Like, you know, kind of bang your head against the wall, dumb.

The Poles are pretty good at tech. The labor is skilled and the labor costs are lower, so it’s a good place for American investment. There are various theories. Martin Petrovsky works with the World Bank, has written about an economic history of Poland and how the Poles got to be so entrepreneurial. And it took a lot of took a lot of the 20th century to get them there, but they sure got there, and they’re really good at it. So American business in Poland is pretty happy, okay, and hopefully this government will be able to do the US and EU balancing thing.

Daniel Fried is the Weiser Family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council. He was the coordinator for sanctions policy during the Obama administration, assistant secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia during the Bush administration, and senior director at the National Security Council for the Clinton and Bush administrations. He also served as ambassador to Poland during the Clinton administration. Follow him on social media @AmbDanFried.

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