Trump says U.S. troops withdrawn from Germany will 'probably' go to Poland
Updated 08:36, 25-Jun-2020
CGTN

U.S. President Donald Trump said that U.S. troops being withdrawn from Germany will "probably" be sent to Poland, as he hosted Polish leader Andrzej Duda at the White House just four days ahead of Poland's election.

"We are going to be reducing our forces in Germany" from 52,000 to 25,000 troops, Trump said after an Oval Office meeting with his populist ally Duda.

"Some will be coming home and some will be going to other places," Trump said. "Poland would be one of those other places."

According to the Associated Press, the White House plans to send another 1,000 U.S. troops to Poland – over and above the 1,000 declared last year – to help bolster against what the country is calling Russian aggression on NATO's eastern flank.

The announcement came as Duda met with the president for the third time in Washington. They discussed NATO, economic cooperation, and energy security, among other crucial topics.

The meeting was also Trump's first meeting with a foreign leader since the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 121,000 people in the U.S.

"President Duda is doing very well in Poland," Trump said following the third Oval Office meeting between the two men. "He's doing a terrific job."

"[Poland] asked us if we would send some additional troops," Trump said during a press conference. "And we'll probably be moving them from Germany to Poland."

However, U.S. Ambassador to Poland Georgette Mosbacher told Polish media that while another 1,000 troops would be heading to the country, they might not necessarily be transferred from Germany.

Trump did not specify how many U.S. troops would be shifted from Germany to Poland.

When asked what message he thought this would send to Russia, Trump said he thought it would send a very strong one.

He also lambasted Germany for how much it spends on energy purchased from Russia. 

The Trump White House announced this month that it'd be reducing the numbers of U.S. troop in Germany by 10,000, faulting them for failing to pay enough for their own defense in NATO and calling the ally "delinquent." The move was roundly criticized by members of his own Republican Party.

A pre-election windfall?

Duda's meeting with Trump came just four days before voters in Poland decide on Sunday whether to give him a second term, and the timing of the meeting was criticized by his opponents as an attempt to gain a pre-election windfall.

The main aim of the Polish side ahead of the visit was a boost in U.S. military assistance.

According to the Polish newspaper Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, 30 U.S. F-16 fighter jets stationed in Germany could be moved to Poland along with some 2,000 troops.

NATO promised Russia in 1997 not to set up permanent bases in the former eastern bloc.

As tensions have grown however, the alliance has rotated troops through front-line countries.

Even though the U.S. troops would still be rotated under any scenario, Polish officials have raised the prospect of a more permanent U.S. presence – perhaps in a facility paid for by Warsaw dubbed "Fort Trump."

The right-wing Duda, who is backed by the governing Law and Justice party, is the current frontrunner in Poland's election, but the centrist europhile opposition candidate Rafal Trzaskowski has been catching up in the polls.

(With input from AFP)

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