US President Donald Trump has said significant progress has been made towards establishing a permanent US Army base in Poland, adding that the location could be announced very soon.
Writing on his Truth Social platform on September 17, he credited the leadership of Polish President Karol Nawrocki. “This will be a historic step for our Great U.S./Polish Alliance,” Trump said.
Nawrocki responded on X about two hours later, thanking the US President and saying Poland was ready to press on with closer defence cooperation with Washington. He added that the Polish Government would do its utmost to provide “the best possible location”.
Marcin Przydacz, who heads the Polish President’s International Policy Bureau, said the timing of the announcement had been coordinated directly with the White House. He told Polsat News the date had been chosen because September 17 marks the 87th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939.
Przydacz said two locations remained under consideration, with areas near Poznań and Wrocław favoured because of their large airports and the housing available for the families of American soldiers.
Poland submitted a formal proposal for a permanent base in June and has since indicated it would prefer several installations rather than a single site. About 10,000 US troops are stationed in the country, most of them on a rotational basis under a defence cooperation agreement signed in 2020.
Polish defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said on September 15 that he would travel to Washington to meet US defence secretary Pete Hegseth, and that a decision was expected in the coming weeks.
He has put the cost of the infrastructure needed at 15 billion to 17 billion zloty (€3.5 billion to €4 billion), with Warsaw expected to cover most of it.
Trump did not say whether the base would host permanently stationed troops, the outcome Warsaw has pushed for. The announcement came as the Pentagon continued a review of the roughly 85,000 US personnel deployed across Europe.
The project has become a central strand of Nawrocki’s relationship with Trump, whose administration has kept its distance from the coalition government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Zbigniew Bogucki, head of the presidential chancellery, called the announcement good news for Poland and underlined the significance of the date.
Speaking in Włodawa, eastern Poland, on the same day, Nawrocki said Russian hybrid operations could be preparing the ground for wider aggression. He urged Polish parties to agree a common line on national security.
