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Published : 2025-09-30
Vol. 16 No. 56 (2025)

Strengthening Ties: The Deepening Defence Partnership between Poland and the US during the first Trump Administration

Christopher Reeves

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7160-6398

DOI: https://doi.org/10.35765/hp.2856
Section: Articles Varia

Abstract

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: To explain why defence co-operation between the Polish and American governments deepened during the first Trump administration (2017-2021), despite the US president’s “America First” agenda.

THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The article places Polish-US relations in a wider context by considering the evolution of relations before Trump’s victory and the broader foreign policy agenda of his administration. It assesses the degree to which the new US administration represented a departure from its predecessors and the implications for Poland’s diplomacy. Using qualitative materials, including official records, newspaper reports, and academic literature, it elucidates the factors that allowed Polish officials to overcome the US administration’s isolationist inclinations and conclude the Enhanced Defence Co-operation Agreement in 2020.

THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The article considers factors that allowed Polish policymakers to deepen the bilateral defence partnership with the US, including the similar worldviews of Polish and US officials and the significant amount that Poland spent on defence.

RESEARCH RESULTS: Polish officials cultivated close relations with their US counterparts and appealed to the US president’s populist instincts, securing three bilateral declarations that committed both governments to deepening their defence partnership, which laid the foundations for the 2020 Enhanced Defence Co-operation Agreement.

CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Polish officials successfully concluded a Defence Agreement that built upon previous US commitments at the 2014 and 2016 NATO summits, significantly increasing the US military presence in Poland. There were, however, financial and diplomatic costs in aligning closely with the Trump administration. Future considerations should include the impact on relations with Poland’s European partners when aligning Poland so closely with a populist US administration.

Keywords

Poland ; United States ; Trump ; defence co-operation ; partnership



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