Joe Biden's advisor: Poland's security crucial for new administration

"Security and the NATO are going to be at the forefront of the relationship. Vice President Biden was the leader who advocated for the enlargement of NATO to include Poland in mid-1990s" - Michael Carpenter said in an interview for "Fakty" TVN's reporter Marcin Wrona. "I think the security relationship is going to be central in how his administration approaches relations with Poland" - he added.

Joe Biden's foreign policy advisor also said that the bilateral relations would be based on values. "It's also a values-based relationship, it's not transactional, it is about our shared belief in the rule of law and democracy".

Asked about the future of American troops in Poland, Carpenter said that "Vice President Biden is committed to ensuring the security of all our allies on the eastern flank, and especially Poland". "That could well include additional troops, it could include additional equipment. I think there's a need, especially, for additional equipment in Poland that would include long-range fires, mobile air-defense systems, and things of that nature that augment our deterrence" - he explained.

"We're going to take this very seriously. I think that the next administration, if it's a Biden's administration is gonna look at a global force posture review" - said Michael Carpenter. "Certainly Poland's security will be front and centre of that effort" - he stressed.

The head of the "Polish Americans for Trump" official committee Łucja Świątkowska-Cannon pointed out that Polish Americans were separated into two groups: one that had arrived to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, and the other group that joined after the WWII. She added that, in her opinion, the latter group "is very politically active when it comes to relations with Poland".

"When it comes to the "new" Polish Americans, president Trump fulfilled his promises that he had made in September 2016, that there would be strong security ties between Poland and the USA, that American soldiers would be present in Poland, that the NATO would be stronger" - Świątkowska-Cannon listed. "Also that the USA would support Polish energy independence, and we also discussed visas. All that we'd hoped for was fulfilled" - she added.

The "Polish Americans for Trump" committee leader also said that the "old" Polish Americans did not identify themselves with that much with Poland, but rather were the American middle class.

She also mentioned Joe Biden's interview for "The New York Times" in which he said that the Democrats "stopped showing up at the Polish American club" and they "all went to the really smart people".

According to Łucja Świątkowska-Cannon, said the Democrats started to orientate themselves towards big city elite, professionals and New York City billionaires. She also argued that Biden had "absolutely offended" Polish Americans. "That's the same kind of thing Hillary Clinton used to say about the so-called "deplorables". She didn't mean only Poles, but the middle-class in general, industrial workers" - she added.

"Here, it's the same thing. Biden spoke about Poles in particular, but he meant the same group of people. The whole Donald Trump's candidacy is a rebellion of American middle class against the Democratic Party policy under Obama and earlier, as well as against big city elite and corporations" - she stressed.