dpa
Warsaw
Poland’s right-wing President Andrzej Duda and US presidential candidate Donald Trump declared their friendship at a dinner in New York on Wednesday night.
“It was a friendly meeting in a very nice atmosphere,” said Duda after the meal.
Duda, who is a loyal former member of the nationalist conservative Law and Justice Party, has never made a secret of his admiration for the real estate tycoon turned reality TV star and US president.
Trump, who is seeking to return to the White House for the Republicans in November’s election amid a slew of criminal probes, had invited Duda to his Manhattan apartment in Trump Tower. “He’s done a fantastic job and he’s my friend,” Trump said of Duda.
“We had four great years together.” The meeting did not go down well with many in Poland, where Trump’s Russia-friendly rhetoric and seeming indifference to US and European security ties is a cause for concern. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose centrist government came to power after defeating the Law and Justice Party in elections last year, criticized Duda’s dinner with Trump.
“Almost everyone in Poland realizes that a possible victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election would be unfavourable for the security of Poland, Europe and the future of NATO,” Tusk said, adding Trump had repeatedly shown his anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian bias. Duda is the latest foreign leader to meet with Trump in the weeks since he locked up the Republican nomination. US allies across the world were caught off guard by Trump’s surprise 2016 win, forcing them to scramble to build relationships with a president who often attacked longstanding treaties and alliances they valued.
Setting up meetings with him during the 2024 campaign suggests they don’t want to be behind again. Even as he goes on trial for one of the four criminal indictments against him, Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden are locked in a rematch that most observers expect will be exceedingly close in November.
