Trump encourages Polish resistance to EU pressure
Speech touches on dangers of extremism, bureaucracy
“The West became great not because of paperwork and regulations but because people were allowed to chase their dreams.” President Trump
President Trump enlisted the Polish people as allies in what he sees as a global struggle — not just against terrorism and extremism but also European-style bureaucracy that he says “drains the vitality and wealth of the people.”
In a speech in Warsaw’s Krasinski Square, Trump appealed directly to a conservative majority in Poland that has been battling the European Union on issues including media freedom, human rights and immigration.
Suggesting that Poland was a bulwark against forces that would destroy Western civilization, Trump warned of the increased power of international organizations that threaten to undermine national sovereignty. It was perhaps his clearest explanation to date of how his economic nationalist philosophy informs his foreign policy.
“This danger is invisible to some but familiar to the Poles — the steady creep of government bureaucracy that drains the vitality and wealth of the people,” he said. “The West became great not because of paperwork and regulations but because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destinies.”
Trump’s visit to Warsaw sends a contentious signal to the rest of Europe as he heads to Hamburg on Thursday night to begin a weekend of meetings with world economic powers as part of the G-20 summit. The agenda, dictated by German host Chancellor Angela Merkel, includes calls for increased trade, refugee resettlement and action on climate change — all opposed by the Trump administration.
Western countries, Trump said, will “welcome new citizens who share our values and love our people,” but “our borders will always be closed to terrorism and extremism.” The United States and Europe “value individual freedom and sovereignty,” he said, but forces inside and outside the West threaten “to erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are.”
Trump received a show of support from one of Europe’s most conservative governments. He met with Polish President Andrzej Duda at the Royal Castle before speaking to a crowd of a few thousand Poles in Krasinski Square, the heart of the 63-day Warsaw uprising against the Nazis in 1944.
The crowd size was reportedly bolstered by buses arranged by Poland’s conservative Law and Justice Party, which has been increasingly at odds with its more liberal western European neighbors since retaking control in 2015. “It is important that President Trump feel good about his visit to Poland,” Stanislaw Pieta, a member of the Polish parliament, told Agence France-Presse.
Two months ago in Brussels, Trump cut a line from a speech expressing an “unwavering” commitment to defend European allies under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. That led to consternation from Merkel and others.
But on Thursday, the president argued that the common-defense agreement should go without saying.
“I would point out that the United States has demonstrated not merely with words but with its actions that we stand firmly behind Article 5,” he said. “Words are easy, but actions are what matters.”