Poland’s ruling party wants deal on more US troops before 2019 election – official

Poland’s ruling party wants to see concrete plans for increasing the presence of US troops on Polish soil before national elections are held next autumn, according to Pawel Soloch, head of the National Security Bureau. The nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party says increasing the number of American soldiers in the country is essential to ward off the threat it claims is posed by Russia. Securing a US base would help PiS show it is taking action to protect Poland from “perceived Russian threats” ahead of national elections, analysts say. PiS may then use this as an argument to win over more voters, after its narrower-than-expected victory in regional elections last Sunday. It is unclear whether plans for a proposed permanent US base in Poland, dubbed ‘Fort Trump’ by Warsaw, will take the exact form pitched by President Andrzej Duda in his meeting with US President Donald Trump in September, Reuters reported.