NATO Allies Prepare for Trump’s Return

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Polish President Andrzej Duda joined the list of foreign leaders beating a path to Donald Trump’s door this week, in the latest European acknowledgment of the Republican‘s clout as a once-and-possibly-future president of the United States.

“It was a friendly meeting in a very nice atmosphere,” Duda told Polish media after his Wednesday evening dinner.

Trump struck a collegial tone when welcoming the Polish leader, whom he described as a “friend,” adding that “we’re behind Poland all the way.” And that’s a sound bite that many European leaders are eager to hear, as they eye with alarm President Joe Biden’s poll numbers, Trump’s campaign speeches, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and congressional Republican opposition to continued U.S. aid for Ukraine.

“A lot of European leaders are concerned about the lack of U.S. support for Ukraine. So they want to meet with Trump in order to share their views,” Kurt Volker, a former ambassador to NATO who resigned as U.S. special envoy for Ukraine amid the scandal that led to Trump’s first impeachment, told the Washington Examiner. “And then, secondly, these leaders are anticipating that Trump’s gonna win. And so, they also want to reestablish relationships.”

Duda is at least the third European leader to travel to the United States to visit Trump, following British Foreign Secretary David Cameron — himself a former prime minister — and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary. Orban’s meeting was especially provocative, from Biden’s perspective, as Orban has been explicit about his desire for Trump to defeat Biden in the 2024 elections and cut off aid to Ukraine. Yet Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s team generally has adopted a nonchalant posture in response to the cavalcade of foreign visits.

“We have seen over the course of years of American elections where foreign governments engage with the nominees of major parties here, just as American diplomats and American leaders often engage with foreign opposition leaders,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters Tuesday. “So that’s something that has happened over decades between governments of various parties in the United States and in other countries.”

Miller’s indifferent tone was belied by a backlash against Duda’s visit in Poland. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk — a center-left politician who displaced Duda’s conservative parliamentary allies in elections last year — suggested that “there will definitely be a lot of controversy” over the trip, and another Tusk ally faulted Duda for risking Warsaw’s relationship with the Biden team.

“Poland depends largely on Joe Biden’s administration,” Polish Sport and Tourism Minister Slawomir Nitras told a Polish outlet.

Duda’s bid for a meeting doubtless benefited from the close cooperation between his conservative government and the United States during Trump’s presidency. Yet his desire for a conversation is not merely a statement of ideological affinity. Other European leaders “have asked for meetings as well,” according to Volker, and allies feel growing pressure to cultivate a relationship with Trump.

“We see that the functioning of the U.S. has been paralyzed towards Ukraine, and Trump has influence even if he’s not in power — even if he’s under criminal investigation — he’s influencing what is happening or not happening,” a senior European official who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Washington Examiner. “The opposition candidate has unprecedented power right now.”

Trump’s influence over the GOP, in combination with Biden’s inability to persuade Congress to authorize new aid to Ukraine, puts European leaders in a paradoxical position: they want his assistance in buttressing Ukraine in the short term, but they also need to assess his likely policy toward NATO in the event that he wins. 

Those diplomatic soundings are all the more necessary given Trump’s statements that he “would encourage” Russian forces “to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies whom Trump considers to be free-riding on U.S. security guarantees.

“They will try not to upset the Biden administration too much, but their greater concern is that they haven’t even had a chance to speak to Trump to get a personal impression of what the guy is really up to,” former NATO strategist Stefanie Babst told the Washington Examiner. “To me, [the visits are] a sign of despair.”

Tusk, the Polish prime minister, suggested that Trump’s return to the White House “would probably be to the detriment” of NATO. Yet another former European leader predicted that the continental politicians would have little trouble falling into line behind Trump, in the event that he returns to power.

“Whatever they may say about that president when they want to look cool to their electorate, in the privacy of the summit meeting, when they actually want to make nice to the U.S. president, it is like watching a tribe of baboons offering acts of simian homage to the leader,” former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said last week during his own trek to the United States. “However baboons do that, which I don’t propose to describe.”

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In any case, Babst resisted the idea that a general election matchup between Biden and Trump amounts to a showdown between a Democratic president who is a good alliance leader and a former Republican president who would be a bad one. Biden’s rhetoric about the alliance is more comforting than Trump’s talking points, but even Biden “gets criticized” in Europe for being too hesitant to stare down Russia’s threats.

“We see that what President Biden has … decided in terms of this strategic parameter when dealing with Ukraine and Russia, that it’s not working because every single day, every single day, Ukraine gets even more crushed,” Babst said. “I think it’s two different ways of being disastrous.”