Analysis

The European Country That Figured Out Trump’s White House

Poland has been successful partly due to strong personal ties, but history suggests that its luck may not hold forever.

By Sam Skove, a staff writer at Foreign Policy.

Military aircraft conduct a flyover as U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Polish President Karol Nawrocki to the White House, Sept. 3, 2025.

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June 30, 2026, 1:32 PM

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If politics with the Trump administration were a baseball game, most European countries would be striking out—with one exception. Poland, Europe’s rising military and economic power, seems to be coping with every curveball the United States throws its way, and even managing the occasional home run.

Some of its successes are due to tactics that any other European nation could replicate: amping up military spending, particularly on U.S. weapons; supporting U.S. policy; and making high-profile, high-dollar business deals with nuclear energy companies.

But perhaps the most important factor is the ideological similarity between MAGA and top Polish politicians—from anti-EU rhetoric to hard-line immigration policy—as well as the personal relationship between U.S. President Donald Trump and Poland’s amateur boxer turned president, Karol Nawrocki.

Poland’s most recent win occurred in May, when it successfully lobbied the Trump administration to reverse a Defense Department decision to draw down U.S. troop numbers in Poland. The move contrasted with Germany and Romania, which both saw troop drawdowns amid a Pentagon policy aimed at divesting military forces from Europe.

The Department of Defense has separately said that Poland, thanks to its already high defense spending, will be among the countries deemed “model allies” that will receive unspecified “special favor” from the Trump administration. It’s an idea that has gained more currency recently thanks to Trump’s desire to punish allies viewed as being unhelpful on the war in Iran and to reward allies that fall in line.

In the diplomatic world, meanwhile, Poland earned a rare public statement in 2025 from Trump condemning Russian drone incursions into Poland.

Now, Poland is pushing for the United States to make its presence permanent in Poland through the construction of “Fort Trump”—a scheme first proposed during Trump’s first term. On Sunday, Poland’s defense minister said that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had responded “positively” and that talks had advanced to their next stage.

Some of the positive relationship may be chalked up to good fundamentals, like defense spending, said Marek Magierowski, who served as Poland’s ambassador to the United States under the Biden administration. Poland has rapidly increased military spending, hitting 4.48 percent of its GDP on defense in 2025, the highest among NATO-member countries. That insulates Poland from Trump’s long-standing complaint about low NATO-member defense spending.

Even better, much of that spending has gone to huge purchases of U.S. weapons. Among those deals are $4.7 billion for helicopters, $4.6 billion for F-35s, and an estimated $10 billion in HIMARS rocket launchers. That’s “quite important” for cultivating support among Congress, Magierowski said.

Warsaw has also been an enthusiastic player in supporting the administration’s economic interests, most notably through a $25 billion-plus deal with a consortium of U.S. companies to build a nuclear power plant in Poland. Poland also has increasing ties to the U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry, with Poland positioning itself as a hub for the distribution of U.S. LNG to its neighbors.

Poland also raised its profile in Washington prior to the second Trump administration by its prominent assistance in supporting Ukraine, said Magierowski, noting Poland’s help in housing Ukrainian refugees. Poland’s work “solidified our position and perception about Poland in the American public opinion,” Magierowski said.

Poland’s diaspora in the United States may also help—more than 8 million Americans claim Polish descent—although Philip Bednarczyk, the Warsaw office director for the German Marshall Fund, discounted their direct impact. “Poland never really had a great presence in D.C.,” Bednarczyk said.

Still, other countries have played similar roles and not reaped quite as many rewards.

Germany, for example, was also among the nations listed by the Defense Department as set to receive benefits for its increased defense spending. After a spat over the Iran war, though, the United States said it was withdrawing some troops from Germany.

Romania likewise has spent heavily on U.S. weaponry and long supported the U.S. military via deployments to Iraq and hosting controversial missile bases on its territory. Nevertheless, the United States has criticized its elections, cut it from the list of countries under looser visa restrictions, and ended a troop rotation.

This is where the broad affinity between the worldviews of MAGA and Poland’s leading conservative party—and specifically the personal relationship between Trump and Nawrocki—may come into play.

From late 2015 to 2023, Poland was ruled by the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, which fought a running battle with the European Union over Poland’s legal system. “It was a message that we are conservative, that we don’t like the European Union too much,” Magierowski said. That chimes with the U.S. administration’s own distaste for Brussels.

PiS’s hard-right conservatism is another selling point, Magierowski added. Leading PiS politicians, such as former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, have echoed the Trump administration’s own criticism of mass migration, the power of the EU, and climate change policy.

That general ideological alignment is cemented by a close personal relationship between Trump and Nawrocki. Nawrocki, a 6-foot, 1-inch former amateur boxer who posts his workouts online, has just the sort of tough-guy image that Trump, a former sponsor of boxing matches, seems to enjoy. Trump also appears to enjoy taking credit for Nawrocki’s win in Poland, which followed Trump’s endorsement of him.

In turn, Nawrocki has earned regular face time with Trump, even though the Polish president wields less power than the prime minister, a role held by Nawrocki’s political adversary, the more left-wing Donald Tusk. Trump has met with Nawrocki four times, twice for meetings and twice for shorter conversations at the annual World Economic Forum meeting and while attending a UFC fight staged in front of the White House this month.

Trump, meanwhile, has not met Tusk since Trump’s second term began—and reportedly asked for Nawrocki to replace Tusk on one important call on Ukraine.

“They also call each other. It just makes for almost constant contact,” said Nikodem Rachon, an advisor to Nawrocki on U.S. affairs. “‘Never bet against America’—President Nawrocki believes in this,” Rachon said, quoting the adage from investor Warren Buffett.

While such interactions may be short, it’s the kind of signal that empowers lower-ranking staff to work out deals, Bednarczyk said. “That’s enough for important people in both administrations to do important work.”

That tactic appears to have paid dividends. After the United States abruptly announced that it would be cutting troop numbers in Poland, Nawrocki and defense officials intervened, ultimately leading Trump to promise to send 5,000 troops to Poland, in a decision he linked to Nawrocki’s election.

Other political leaders in Poland have similarly good relationships with their counterparts, added Magierowski, who noted positive relationships between Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and U.S. State Department head Marco Rubio, as well as between Hegseth and Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz.

Still, political alignment doesn’t guarantee smooth sailing with the Trump administration. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni once had a close relationship with Trump and was the only European leader to attend his inauguration. But after Meloni rebuked Trump’s criticism of the pope and blocked U.S. access to bases needed for the Iran war, their relationship soured.

Leaning too far into personal or political connections carries risks as well, with administrations and personalities changing with each election. The 2026 U.S. midterm elections may sweep Democrats into power in Congress—and the 2028 presidential election is far from decided, with the Republican Party contending with many Americans’ disapproval of Trump’s presidency.

“I don’t know how to future-proof the Polish-U.S. relationship—but it shouldn’t be based on the 90-second conversation next to a cage match,” Bednarczyk said.

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