{"id":33876,"date":"2017-07-06T05:09:08","date_gmt":"2017-07-06T05:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=33876"},"modified":"2017-07-06T05:09:08","modified_gmt":"2017-07-06T05:09:08","slug":"trump-needs-nice-pictures-europe-poland-will-likely-oblige","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/trump-needs-nice-pictures-europe-poland-will-likely-oblige.html","title":{"rendered":"Trump needs some nice pictures from Europe, and Poland will likely oblige"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump needs some nice pictures from Europe, and Poland will likely oblige<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

President Trump arrived here late Wednesday in a country where the ruling Law and Justice party has called for Poland to \u201crise from its knees\u201d \u2014 a phrase that carries echoes of Trump\u2019s \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d slogan. The populist, nationalist government has also spurned calls for European nations to welcome in Muslim asylum seekers, just as Trump has sought to halt the flow of Syrian refugees to America.<\/span><\/p>\n

Government leaders have even promised to bus in throngs of people from rural Poland \u2014 the heart of the ruling party\u2019s support \u2014 to cheer the American president as he delivers a speech Thursday in the less-supportive capital city of Warsaw.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s decision to visit Poland ahead of a Group of 20 meeting in Hamburg this week is widely viewed as a pointed embrace of his ideological allies here \u2014 and a shot across the bow at Europe\u2019s establishment forces, led by Germany and France.<\/span><\/p>\n

For both governments, the visit is a chance to bolster their alliance at a time of heightened tensions with the rest of Europe. Trump has raised hackles with his friendly posture toward Russian President Vladi\u00admir Putin and his rejection of the Paris climate deal, while Polish President Andrzej Duda is in the midst of a roiling debate over controversial constitutional changes spearheaded by the Law and Justice party.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTrump needs some nice pictures from Europe and the Polish government promised him that there would be cheering crowds in Warsaw,\u201d said Piotr Buras, head of the Warsaw office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. \u201cThe Polish government also needs nice pictures. .\u2009.\u2009. It needs certain high-level events which would show that Poland is not isolated in Europe and isolated in the world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The leader of Law and Justice, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, played up the significance of Trump\u2019s visit ahead of the G-20 summit and bragged that it has made Poland the \u201cenvy\u201d of other nations such as Britain, which has yet to play host to the U.S. president.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have new success \u2014 Trump\u2019s visit,\u201d Kaczynski said over the weekend. Others \u201cenvy it; the British are attacking us because of it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet for some Poles, the prospect that Trump might use his visit to bolster the ruling party fills them with dread.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want him to feel welcome here,\u201d said Paulina Skolasinska, 24, a student at the University of Warsaw, who criticized Trump and the Polish ruling party for their \u201cfearmongering.\u201d \u201cI feel like a lot of Poles support him because he is very similar to the Law and Justice party here. .\u2009.\u2009. He speaks to the base instincts. He wants people to fear other people \u2014 other nationalities, other ethnicities.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Especially among college students and other younger Warsaw residents, Trump\u2019s visit has left a bad taste, even while it is viewed as a potential positive for Poland\u2019s security.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like him, actually,\u201d said another student, Magda Stanczuk, 27. \u201cHe is not as good a person as he could be. I don\u2019t like such people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Michal Pawtowski, 21, added: \u201cI think that it is good that he\u2019s coming because we can\u2019t change here in Poland that he\u2019s the president of the United States, but he is the president and we must keep good relations with the United States.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For decades, the United States and Poland have maintained close ties. The Polish people are widely viewed as being positively inclined toward Americans, and many Americans trace their ancestry to Poland.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Trump\u2019s presidency has proved to be a polarizing issue here, mirroring the degree to which Poland\u2019s domestic politics have exposed rifts in the society. Since Law and Justice took power in 2015, the party has been accused of pushing anti-democratic changes, engaging in press restrictions, moving to constrict women\u2019s reproductive rights and stifling the teaching of evolution and climate change in schools.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s rhetoric against the media and refugees and his criticism of global institutions such as NATO and the European Union are similarly viewed negatively by Polish people, especially those in major cities like Warsaw. Although he is viewed far more positively among Poles than among other Europeans, just 23 percent of Polish people said they had confidence in Trump, a decline of nearly 40 percent compared with their view of Barack Obama at a similar point in his presidency, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll. And a survey ahead of Trump\u2019s visit by an independent Polish news organization found that most felt a sense of \u201cindifference,\u201d \u201camusement\u201d and \u201cfear\u201d at the thought of Trump\u2019s presence here.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of this what I would call ideological affinities between the Law and Justice party in Poland and Mr. Trump, not only in terms of ideology and political worldview but also some of the methods of doing politics are strikingly similar to my mind,\u201d said Jacek Kucharczyk, president of the Institute of Public Affairs, a Warsaw think tank. \u201cNo wonder the Polish ruling party has embraced this visit and is doing all they can to welcome Mr. Trump with open arms and also to glow in his light.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For Trump, it will be an opportunity to be embraced by a pro-American crowd in his first public address overseas.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Thursday, at a monument dedicated to Poland\u2019s 1944 uprising against Nazi occupation, Trump will deliver what his aides have billed as a major speech in front of a crowd that will include many rural residents transported into the city free of charge by Law and Justice.<\/span><\/p>\n

National security adviser H.R. McMaster said in a briefing ahead of the trip that Trump will \u201clay out a vision, not only for America\u2019s future relationship with Europe, but the future of our transatlantic alliance and what that means for American security and American prosperity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For Poland\u2019s governing party, Trump\u2019s visit is being characterized as an unequivocal victory in the international arena and a potential turning point for the country\u2019s efforts to gain energy independence from Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Poland also remains a strategically critical European nation that is particularly sensitive to the threat of rising Russian power. Despite Trump\u2019s efforts to pursue warmer relations with Putin, the Polish government expressed optimism that Trump remains committed to the security of Central and Eastern Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important that the president will be there and he will hopefully confirm again the U.S. commitment to NATO and to our cooperation,\u201d said Piotr Wilczek, Poland\u2019s ambassador to the United States. \u201cFor us, his visit to Poland before meeting with President Putin sends a very strong message.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And despite widespread concerns about Trump\u2019s personality and politics, many Poles view Trump\u2019s visit as a reassuring sign that the United States will not pull back on its commitment to Poland\u2019s security under his leadership.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPoles were really afraid that it would be President Trump having a very successful summit with President Putin and sitting at the table together with Putin and making divisions or [establishing] a new order for this part of the world \u2014 that was a real threat here,\u201d said Michal Kobosko, director of the Atlantic Council\u2019s Warsaw office. \u201cThis has not materialized yet, so Poles are looking with some optimism toward Trump.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey believe the decision to have him present in Warsaw really means that even though it\u2019s \u2018America First,\u2019 it\u2019s not to say it\u2019s Central Europe second,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

But with this stop, Trump risks being accused of exacerbating rifts within Europe, which have only grown as populist political movements like Law and Justice have come to power.<\/span><\/p>\n

Among some in Poland and elsewhere in Europe, the visit is being watched closely for signs that Trump will use it as an opportunity to undermine the European Union or castigate America\u2019s NATO allies for failing to \u201cpay their fair share\u201d by spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on their own defense budgets.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Polish government has a strained relationship with Germany, too,\u201d said Buras, of the European Council on Foreign Relations. \u201cThe Germans will be listening carefully to what Trump says and what the Polish reaction is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf he wants to humiliate Germany and deepen the divisions within the European Union, he could use this visit very much to this purpose,\u201d he added. \u201cThe divisions are already there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/trump-needs-some-nice-pictures-from-europe-and-poland-will-likely-oblige\/2017\/07\/05\/0bd749c0-6187-11e7-a6c7-f769fa1d5691_story.html?utm_term=.3e5b0099a4cf<\/span><\/p>\n

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