Donald Trump began the 14th U.S. presidential visit to Poland. On Thursday, the U.S. President will meet President Andrzej Duda and give a speech at the Krasiński Square, which is set to be a platform statement.
The Air Force One with Donald Trump and his spouse Melania on board landed in Warsaw shortly before 10 p.m. The President was welcomed by Poland’s Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski and head of the Polish President’s Cabinet Krzysztof Szczerski.
The official part of Donald Trump’s visit begins at 9 a.m. on Thursday with a one-to-one conversation with President Andrzej Duda at the Royal Castle. In an interview, the Polish President underlined that he would be focusing on two issues: security and energy cooperation.
“I am deeply committed to ensuring the allied presence of U.S. troops in Poland, to genuinely strengthen NATO’s eastern flank through the permanent presence of allied troops, and this is something I am definitely going to talk about with President Trump,” announced Duda.
He went on to say that “a prospective contract with an American LNG provider” was also on the agenda. “The first delivery has already been made on a test basis – it arrived here and was introduced to our LNG terminal, so this is possible and doable. Current activities are aimed at concluding a long-term contract,” stressed the president.
Head of the President’s Cabinet, Krzysztof Szczerski, admitted on Tuesday that in parallel to President Trump’s visit to Warsaw, business negotiations on LNG deliveries to Poland are underway between the Polish Oil & Gas Company (PGNiG) and American partners. He added that their result “would have to be economically satisfying for us.” In his opinion, the president was encouraging PGNiG CEO Piotr Woźniak “to conduct the negotiations so as to achieve a +win-win+ diversification effect, i.e. a good price, good date and good quality.”
Following both presidents’ meeting at the Royal Castle, the Polish and American delegations will hold plenary talks.
Security and cooperation
President Trump is coming with a delegation of almost 20 members. According to the latest information published by the Chancellery of the President, Trump is accompanied by Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, the President’s National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, as well as Trump’s son-in-law and one of his closest advisors, Jared Kushner, who is accompanied by his wife Ivanka Trump.
On the Polish side, apart from President Andrzej Duda, plenary talks will be attended by the Deputy PM, Minister of Finance and Development Mateusz Morawiecki, Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski, Minister of National Defense Antoni Macierewicz, the government plenipotentiary for strategic energy infrastructure Piotr Naimski as well as ‘presidential’ ministers: head of the Chancellery of the President Halina Szymańska, head of the National Security Bureau Paweł Soloch, the aforementioned Krzysztof Szczerski, and the Polish ambassador to the U.S. Piotr Wilczek.
After the plenary talks, both presidents are scheduled to give media statements.
The Three Seas Initiative
Trump will also attend the Three Seas Initiative Summit, where he is to meet the leaders of 12 states situated in the region between the Adriatic, the Baltic and the Black Seas. The U.S. President will attend the first session of the summit on Euro-Atlantic cooperation.
Energy is another potential cooperation platform between the U.S. and CEE countries. One of the objectives of Poland and Croatia’s initiative is the construction of gas infrastructure and the development of interconnections. This could be of interest for the U.S. which plans to become a global player on the LNG export market.
Anticipated speech
One of the most anticipated moments of President Trump’s visit to Poland is his speech at the Krasiński Square. It will be preceded by both presidential couples and veterans paying tribute before the Warsaw Uprising Monument. The Krasiński Square has been selected by the American side, the organizer of the speech.
“I think President Trump will address security-related matters,” Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said to the Polish Press Agency (PAP). In his opinion, the location is symbolic. “From what we’ve heard from the White House, he will speak well about Poland and Poland’s history, which makes me really happy, as it’s a good thing that the leadership of the global superpower the U.S. is are familiar with our history. This prompts certain conclusions as to what we may expect in terms of security,” he stressed.
In Szczerski’s opinion, Donald Trump’s speech will be a platform statement on security policy, Europe and Polish-American relations.
This will be the 14th U.S. presidential visit to Poland. Over one year, Poland will have been visited by two U.S. presidents in office. Last July, the then president Barack Obama attended the NATO summit in Warsaw.
After his visit to Warsaw, Trump will go to Hamburg, where he is to take part in the G20 summit.
This is President Trump’s second foreign trip. In May, the U.S. President visited the Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and then travelled to Europe. He spoke with Pope Francis in the Vatican, attended a meeting of NATO leaders in Brussels and took part in a G7 summit in Taormina, Sicily.
Źródło: PAP/tłumaczenie intertext.com.pl