{"id":24781,"date":"2024-03-12T22:06:17","date_gmt":"2024-03-13T03:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24781"},"modified":"2024-03-12T22:06:21","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T03:06:21","slug":"in-white-house-visit-polish-president-pushes-nato-to-ramp-up-spending-calls-on-us-to-fund-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24781","title":{"rendered":"In White House visit, Polish president pushes NATO to ramp up spending, calls on US to fund Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Polish President Andrzej Duda<\/a> used a joint White House visit with his political rival, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, on Tuesday to call on NATO allies to significantly increase defense spending and press a divided Washington to break its impasse over replenishing funds for Ukraine at a critical moment in the war in Europe.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duda wants members of the NATO alliance to raise their spending on defense to 3% of their GDP<\/a> as Russia puts its own economy on a war footing and pushes forward with its plans to conquer Ukraine. Poland already spends 4% of its own economic output on defense, double the current target of 2% for NATO nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Polish leader made the call as he and Tusk visited Washington to mark their country\u2019s 25th anniversary of joining the now 32-member transatlantic military alliance. It was a historic step into the West after breaking free from Moscow\u2019s sphere of influence after decades of communist rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRussia\u2019s aggression against Ukraine really demonstrated that United States is and should remain the security leader,\u201d Duda said. \u201cBut other allies must take more responsibility for the security of the alliance as a whole. Two percent was good 10 years ago. Now 3% is required in response for the full scale war launched by Russia right beyond NATO\u2019s eastern border.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden called the U.S. commitment to Poland ironclad and marveled at Poland\u2019s current defense spending and thanked the leaders for taking in hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees after Russia launched the February 2022 invasion. But he did not directly address Duda\u2019s call for NATO members to ramp up spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we stand together, no force on earth is more powerful,\u201d Biden said, recalling the words of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright upon Poland\u2019s accession into the alliance. \u201dI believed that then and I believe that now. And we see it with Polish and American troops serving side by side with NATO on the eastern flank, including in Poland.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden administration officials, however, suggested ahead of the meeting that Duda\u2019s call to raise the defense spending target for NATO countries may be, at least for the time being, overly ambitious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the first step is to get every country meeting the 2% threshold, and we\u2019ve seen improvement of that,\u201d State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. \u201cBut I think that\u2019s the first step before we start talking about an additional proposal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The visit also comes amid a standoff in Washington between Biden, a Democrat, and House Republicans on Ukraine funding. House Republicans have blocked a $118 billion bipartisan package<\/a> that includes $60 billion in Ukraine funding, as well as funds for Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pentagon announced Tuesday it will rush about $300 million in weapons to Ukraine<\/a> after finding some cost savings in its contracts. It\u2019s the Biden administration\u2019s first announced security package for Ukraine since December, when it acknowledged it was out of replenishment funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden said the funding is not nearly enough, and pointed to Poland\u2019s own history to argue for further further funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe must act before it literally is too late.\u201d Biden said. \u201cBecause as Poland remembers, Russia won\u2019t stop at Ukraine. Putin will keep going, putting Europe, the United States and the entire free world at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duda met with U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Tuesday before the White House meeting. and offered a blunt warning: If the U.S. does not deliver military aid to halt Russia\u2019s advance, Poland will be on the frontlines of a conflict that involves European and American troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFinancial support for Ukraine is cheap if you take into account what other forms of support would be needed if it comes to war and to an attack on NATO countries,\u201d Duda said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tusk after the White House meeting called on Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to pass Ukraine funding, warning him that inaction could \u201ccost thousands of human lives in Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is not some political skirmish that has significance only here, on the American political stage,\u201d Tusk said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson, who was among the lawmakers who met with Duda, said in a statement, that \u201cAmerica must remain united with our friends against those who threaten our security.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden informed the leaders that the U.S. plans to move forward with a foreign military financing loan that will help Poland purchase 96 Apache helicopters. The State Department approved the sale last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The visit offered Biden another opportunity to showcase how his view of NATO contrasts with that of the likely 2024 Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has said that when he was president, he warned\u00a0NATO allies<\/a>\u00a0that he \u201cwould encourage\u201d Russia\u00a0\u201cto do whatever the hell they want\u201d<\/a>\u00a0to countries that are \u201cdelinquent\u201d in meeting the alliance\u2019s defense spending target. White House press secretary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fear is deepening across Europe about Ukraine\u2019s fate as its ammunition stocks run low and as Russia makes gains on the battlefield in Ukraine, reversing its weak military performance at the start of a war launched in February 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tusk said that despite political divisions in Poland the country is unified on the issues of security, Russia and Ukraine and wishes the same were true for other allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we Poles started on our road to the West, Pope John Paul II said there could be no just Europe without an independent Poland,\u201d Tusk said \u201cAnd today, I would say there can be no safe Europe without a strong Poland. And of course I would also say there could be no just Europe without a free and independent Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the first time in a quarter-century for a Polish president and prime minister to be in Washington at the same time and the first for both leaders to be welcomed at the White House at the same time, according to Polish media. The gesture by the bitter political rivals is widely seen as an acknowledgment of the seriousness of this historical moment, with Russian strength growing as that of Ukraine wanes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duda, aligned with a national conservative party that lost power last year, used his power to delay the transition to a new government under Tusk by weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tusk won power after promising to restore democratic norms that eroded under the last government and Poland has been hailed by many across Europe as one of the only places where growing authoritarianism has been reversed in recent times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo matter matter who wins the election in our country we treat our obligation seriously, more than anyone else in Europe,\u201d Tusk said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Polish President Andrzej Duda used a joint White House visit with his political rival, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, on Tuesday to call on NATO allies to significantly increase defense spending and press a divided Washington to break its impasse over replenishing funds for Ukraine at a critical moment in the war in Europe. Duda […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":24783,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1153],"tags":[1761,1169,3168,23312,1416,1385],"class_list":["post-24781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military","tag-aid","tag-biden","tag-poland","tag-the-white-house","tag-ukraine","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24784,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24781\/revisions\/24784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}