Few countries’ fortunes with the US have fallen as quickly as Poland’s have in recent days. It went from what Secretary of War Pete Hegseth praised as the US’ “model ally” a year ago to US Ambassador to Poland Tom Rose declaring last week that “we too ask if our allies are as loyal to us as they expect us to be to them.” That was the last part of his lengthy post in response to liberal Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk questioning Trump 2.0’s loyalty to NATO in his interview with the Financial Times.
It was correspondingly assessed that “Tusk Is Hellbent On Shifting Poland From The American Camp To The Franco-German One”. Conservative opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski tweeted in response that “Once again, Tusk let himself be baited and carried out orders from Berlin, attacking the Americans…Tusk is destroying Polish-American relations, while at the same time Germany is tightening cooperation with the Americans on the concept of NATO 3.0.”
He concluded that “Tusk got played again. Are we governed by agents or by people whom God shortchanged on any political abilities whatsoever?” Kaczynski’s mention of “orders from Berlin” and questioning whether Poland is “governed by agents” are allusions to him telling Tusk in late December 2023 that “I know one thing, you are a German agent. Simply a German agent.” This is a reference to the observation that Tusk has regularly advanced German interests all throughout his career.
Meanwhile, the part about Germany refers to Under Secretary of War Elbridge Colby praising it in a series of tweets, one of which said that “Germany is taking on a historically unprecedented amount of responsibility for Europe.” The backdrop concerns Germany’s large-scale military build-up, which was assessed here as part of a friendly competition with Poland to lead Russia’s containment. After having needlessly offended Trump, however, it looks like Poland is once again subordinating itself to Germany.
The US is no longer being relied upon as a counterbalance to Germany, let alone perceived as Poland’s top security partner, with France now playing that role instead through their newly announced regular nuclear drills aimed against Russia and Belarus. On that topic, President Emmanuel Macron told the media late last week that the US, Russian, and Chinese presidents “are dead against the Europeans”, thus suggesting that he shared similar opinions with Tusk during their meeting in Gdansk several days prior.
It therefore wouldn’t be a stretch to speculate that Tusk is indeed deliberately “destroying Polish-American relations” like Kaczynski assessed, but due to a combination of German and French influence, not just German influence like he assumed. Former head of the National Security Bureau Slawomir Cenckiewicz claimed last week that “A characteristic feature of Tusk’s government is blunt anti-Atlanticism and anti-Americanism”, which those two are now conceivably exploiting for this purpose.
Tusk’s rival, President Karol Nawrocki, still has good relations with Trump and is allied with Kaczynski’s pro-US conservatives. Even so, that might not be enough to prevent Tusk from shifting Poland from the American camp to the Franco-German one after Trump 2.0 signaled its displeasure with Poland per the Ambassador to Poland’s post. To be sure, nothing tangible has happened thus far to ruin their ties, but Trump might take the plunge if Tusk keeps offending him like Germany and France arguably want.
