White House to host Polish President and Prime Minister
US President Joe Biden will host Polish President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the White House today.
The leaders will commemorate the 25th anniversary of Poland joining NATO. Poland—which borders Ukraine—is an increasingly crucial NATO ally given that the country is currently spending around 4% of its GDP on defense and rapidly arming.
Poland is on track to creating Europe’s biggest army. To date the country has purchased around 400 Abrams tanks and close to 500 HIMARS rocket-launchers from the US, alongside 1,000 K2 Black Panther tanks and 700 howitzers from South Korea. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US has also become Poland’s major supplier of natural liquefied gas (LNG).
The Polish delegation will likely seek additional assurances for speedy delivery of US military gear and hope to expand bilateral energy cooperation on LNG and nuclear energy. Biden, Tusk and Duda are expected to jointly express their countries’ ongoing support for Ukraine. This comes amid a $61 billion US aid package to Ukraine stalled in Congress. Biden will likely hope to put additional pressure on Congress to approve the package for Ukraine.
