Page 32 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine December 2024

32 I Central Europe bne December 2024
Donald Tusk is taking over the EU’s rotating presidency on January 1, just weeks before Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president of the US. / bne IntelliNews
Trump's election complicates Tusk's foreign policy challenges
Wojciech Kosc in Warsaw
When it dawned on the world that Donald Trump had actually completed his stunning comeback to the top of world politics, Polish President Andrzej Duda took to social media.
“Congratulations, Mr President! You made it happen,” the Polish president posted on X.
Just over 90 minutes later, Prime Minister Donald Tusk logged on. “Congratulations to Donald Trump on winning the election. I look forward to our cooperation for the good of the American and Polish nations,” Tusk posted.
Unlike the opposition Law and Justice's (PiS's) supporting president, who knows – and apparently likes – Trump from
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his first term in the Oval Office, Tusk and his camp have made it clear Kamala Harris would have been their preferred US president.
Tusk will now hope Duda will work hand in hand with the government to make Trump get over his criticism of Nato and shelve his plan to “end war in Ukraine
in 24 hours”, which Poland fears means conceding to Putin. But it will mostly fall on Tusk to handle Trump’s famed – and feared – erratic and capricious behaviour, such as his accusations that Europe is “freeloading” on the US for defence.
Tale of two Donalds
With Trump in charge, Tusk has just been presented with an extra level of difficulty in how he and Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski (whose wife, columnist Anne Applebaum likened Trump to Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini) are going to lead their country’s foreign policy in the coming years.
Warsaw is worried that Trump is capable of making abrupt decisions that would end the West’s involvement in Ukraine, forcing Kyiv to concede occupied territories to Russia and
“One of Trump’s principles is being unpredictable, which he uses purportedly to surprise his enemies – but also his allies”