A prominent Polish newspaper has urged US President Donald Trump to “support the European Union instead of weakening it” in an editorial published to coincide with Trump’s arrival in Poland.
The article, published in English and in Polish by Gazeta Wyborcza late Wednesday, welcomed Trump “without illusions and without naïve enthusiasm, but with a moderate helping of hope.”
“We will be listening very attentively to the words of the current American President,” wrote Jaroslaw Kurski, the newspaper’s deputy editor-in-chief.
“We expect the United States to confirm the commitments resulting from Article 5 of the Washington Treaty (one for all, all for one) and to provide Poland with guaranties of safety, confirmed by the permanent presence of US troops on our land.
“We expect that Donald Trump’s Presidency will not mean a return to a police of isolationism; in other words, that the United States will not back out of Europe; that they will support the European Union instead of weakening it.”
Trump has previously criticized a number of European allies and the NATO military alliance, of which Poland is a member.
At a NATO summit in May, Trump was criticized after he declined to publicly commit to Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which states that an attack on one NATO nation is an attack on them all and requires a collective defense. Trump later announced his support for Article 5.
Trump delivered a speech in Warsaw on Thursday, where he received a warm welcome from the assembled crowds.
“Poland is the geographic heart of Europe,” Trump said. “But more importantly, in the Polish people we see the soul of Europe.”
American presidents have long been well received in Poland and the country’s conservative government, led by President Andrzej Duda, is more ideologically in line with Trump than his predecessor, Barack Obama.
Trump will leave Warsaw on Thursday for Hamburg, Germany to attend the G-20 summit, where he is set to meet with foreign leaders including Germany’s Angela Merkel and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
In the Gazeta Wyborcza article, Kurski praised the US’ longstanding alliance with Poland: “In the dark days of Communism, America’s message to Poland was always: freedom and democracy, the rule of law, and independent media. We have always remembered this message, and always shall.”
“Leaders change,” the article concludes, “but nations and their founding principles endure.”