Poland’s opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party has expressed delight at Donald Trump’s US presidential election win while Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Liberals have been grudgingly adjusting to the prospect.
PiS figures such as potential presidential candidates for Poland’s presidential election due in the spring of next year, former PM Mateusz Morawiecki Morawiecki and head of the National Remembrance Institute (IPN) Karol Nawrocki, were in the US supporting Trump during the Republican nominee’s election campaign.
According to PiS MP and former deputy foreign minister Marcin Przydacz, Trump’s win gives PiS the opportunity to emphasise that its ally President Andrzej Duda together with the then-PiS government “enjoyed close relations with the first Trump administration during which the US increased its military presence in and trade with Poland, lifted visa requirements for Poles visiting America with Poland becoming a strong advocate in support of the US demands that European NATO member states increase their military spending”.
“Trump’s win also shows that it is possible to bounce back after a defeat and return to power,” Przydacz added, alluding to the fact that PiS lost its majority and power in the 2023 elections but has a chance of turning the tables on the Liberals next year.
Moreover, PiS welcomed the positions taken by Republicans, such as future Vice President JD Vance, against the Tusk government’s purge of judges appointed under the PiS government and the takeover of public media and will now aim to leverage that in Poland’s domestic politics.
Tusk and his foreign minister Radosław Sikorski were restrained in their support of Democrat hopeful Kamala Harris in the weeks preceding the US vote, recognising that they may have to work with a Trump administration. They noted, though, that she had echoed their fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin “could set his sights on Poland and the Baltic States” if he was allowed to win the war in Ukraine.
Leading up to the US ballot, Poland’s PM, who has in the past chastised Republicans on social media for blocking aid for Ukraine, had pivoted towards the line that regardless of who won in the US, Europe must be prepared to defend itself.
Commenting on the race between Harris and Trump just a few days before the poll on November 5, Tusk wrote on social media: “Harris or Trump? Some claim that the future of Europe depends on the American elections, while it depends first and foremost on us. On condition Europe finally grows up and believes in its own strength.”
In an appeal to the EU to reduce its reliance on the US for security, he added: “Whatever the outcome, the era of geopolitical outsourcing is over,” and stated that Poland was leading by example in spending 4.7 per cent of its GDP on defence.
In response, former defence minister and current leader of the PiS parliamentary caucus Mariusz Błaszczak said Tusk should resign if Trump won and slammed him for “fantasising about European defence rather than concentrating on ensuring Poland has a close alliance with its security guarantor in the USA”.
Sikorski dismissed Błaszczak’s attack as the PiS presenting Poland as a vassal of the US and said “Polish diplomacy was prepared for either result” adding that, should Trump win, Poland would be “more convincing to conservative Republicans than many other EU States”.
The Polish foreign minister wants to be the presidential candidate for Tusk’s Civic Coalition (KO) and lately has been emphasising the fact that his views were more Conservative than those of Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who is thus far the front-runner for that nomination.
While the PiS wanted Trump to win, party members have not changed their minds regarding Ukraine support. On that issue, both the Tusk government and the Polish opposition remain united.
