IRIA News

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Donald Tusk arrived in Washington on March 13, 2024, to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden and mark the 25th anniversary of Warsaw’s accession into the NATO alliance.

This is the first time in a quarter-century that a Polish president and prime minister have visited Washington at the same time. The visit from the Polish leadership comes at a time when U.S. President Biden is pressing to overcome Republican hardliners in Congress who are stalling the aid package for Ukraine’s weaponry and aid to Israel.

During the meeting at the White House, President Biden called the U.S. commitment to Poland ironclad marveled at Poland’s current defense spending, and thanked the leaders for taking in hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees after Russia launched the February 2022 invasion. But he did not directly address Duda’s call for NATO members to ramp up spending.

Prezydent @AndrzejDuda w @WhiteHouse: Nie ma lepszego miejsca, by świętować tą wyjątkową rocznicę niż Biały Dom. To dzięki odważnym decyzjom, jakie właśnie tutaj – w stolicy Stanów Zjednoczonych – podejmowali wspólnie, zarówno Demokraci, jak i Republikanie, NATO rozszerzyło się… pic.twitter.com/7jnDWGdLyn

— Kancelaria Prezydenta (@prezydentpl) March 12, 2024

“When we stand together, no force on earth is more powerful,” Biden said, recalling the words of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright upon Poland’s accession into the alliance. “I believed that then and I believe that now. And we see it with Polish and American troops serving side by side with NATO on the eastern flank, including in Poland.”

The visit from the Polish leadership comes at a time when U.S. President Biden is pressing to overcome Republican hardliners in Congress who are stalling the aid package for Ukraine’s weaponry and aid to Israel.

A White House statement released after the meeting between the Polish and the U.S. said that the United States provide a new $2 billion Foreign Military Financing (FMF) direct loan to Poland, to bolster its security and defense modernization campaign.

The loan would enable Poland to purchase more U.S.-made defense equipment, the statement added. Biden also noted that the United States will sell 96 AH-64 Apache helicopters to Poland.  “This is a major step to provide Poland’s armed forces with cutting-edge capability to defend itself, strengthen NATO interoperability, and further bolster the U.S. defense industry,” the statement said.

Meeting with US lawmakers

During their stay in Washington, Duda and Tusk also met with U.S. lawmakers separately at Capitol Hill, asking them to pass a new package delivering military aid to Kyiv and break the standoff between Congress’s two parties.

“Financial support for Ukraine is cheap if you take into account what other forms of support would be needed if it comes to war and an attack on NATO countries,” Duda said during his meeting with the delegation of U.S. lawmakers.

Tusk called on Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to pass Ukraine funding, warning him that inaction could “cost thousands of human lives in Ukraine.” He said, “This is not some political skirmish that has significance only here, on the American political stage.”

Speaking before the talks, Polish Foreign Minister Radislaw Sikorski also urged House Speaker Mike Johnson to allow a vote on the Ukraine funds but toned down an earlier plea in which he said Johnson would be blamed if the bill failed and Russian troops advanced.

While the U.S. Senate has passed a bipartisan package that includes $60 billion in Ukraine funding, the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives is refusing to bring it to the floor for a vote.

“If the American package doesn’t arrive, Ukraine might be in difficulty, and that might eventually mean the need for more American troops in Europe,” Sikorski told reporters ahead of the visit. He also appealed to Johnson’s Baptist faith, saying that Russia “persecutes religious minorities, including Baptists” in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.

During my meeting today with President Duda and Prime Minister Tusk, we again made clear that the United States and Poland proudly stand with Ukraine in the face of Russia’s brutal war of conquest. pic.twitter.com/kCLYRKe7ZF

— President Biden (@POTUS) March 13, 2024

Appeal to increase defense NATO defense spending

The Polish President also set the stage for his appeal to increase military aid for Ukraine ahead of his visit to the U.S. In an article written in the Washington Post, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda urged NATO members to increase their defense spending to 3% of their GDP, emphasizing that the alliance needs to step up efforts to counterbalance Russia’s escalating military expenditures amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

“The war in Ukraine has clearly shown that the United States is and should remain the leader in security issues in Europe and the world,” Duda said in an address one day ahead of his visit to Washington. “However, other NATO countries must also take greater responsibility for the security of the entire alliance and intensively modernize and strengthen their troops,” he added.

Biden administration officials, however, suggested ahead of the meeting that Duda’s call to raise the defense spending target for NATO countries may be, at least for the time being, overly ambitious.

“I think the first step is to get every country meeting the 2% threshold, and we’ve seen improvement of that,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. “But I think that’s the first step before we start talking about an additional proposal.”