The office of Polish President Andrzej Duda has been assured by the Trump administration of a continued U.S. armor presence in Eastern Europe, and Poland especially. President Trump’s comments on NATO members needing to pay their fair share of defense costs have rattled the alliance.
Duda’s foreign policy aide, Krzysztof Szczerski, met late Thursday in Washington with Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn.
Szczerski said he was assured that the “presence of U.S. troops in Poland will be a permanent element of Polish-U.S. ties,” reports Associated Press. He also invited Trump to visit Poland in July for a regional summit.
NATO has deployed thousands of troops recently on the Russian border in Eastern Europe in Poland and the Baltic nations in response to perceived threatening behavior by the Kremlin. The forces are not technically permanent and will be rotated every nine months.
