Straight from Texas about the president and prime minister’s visit to Washington
A short joint visit to Washington by president Andrzej Duda and prime minister Donald Tusk at the invitation of president Joe Biden raised a lot of emotions in Poland. We asked prof. Anna Pacześniak from the Institute of European Studies at the University of Wrocław, who is on a research internship at the University of Houston (as part of the IDUB programme) to comment on the event.
Some were curious to see how much the two Polish politicians had in common on 12 March (it was not visible), others wondered what benefit Poland would derive from the visit (there are specifics and general assurances of allied guarantees), and there were also those who speculated on what had been agreed behind closed doors (it was clear that it was not known) – comments Professor Anna Pacześniak.
For the past three months, she has been on a research internship at the University of Houston (as part of the IDUB programme), so she has had an excellent opportunity to observe American reactions and interest in the visit by Polish politicians. We asked the professor for a comment, although we know that it was not easy, as Houston is almost 2,300 km from Washington. – That is almost as far as Wrocław from Madrid or Istanbul – laughs the professor. – But it is not the geographical distance problem. Outside Washington, and Texas is definitely not in it, the visit of Polish politicians went unnoticed not only by the public, but also by the media.
Prof. Anna Pacześniak: – In Poland, every visit by the American president (who is also the head of government, so we have nothing to look forward to with the arrival of the “US prime minister”) is a huge event, and on many levels. And this is not just because the largest private television station is in the hands of American owners. When Joe Biden came to Poland a month after the outbreak of full-scale war in Ukraine, we treated the visit as a symbol of our security and … watched him handle a swallow of spicy pizza at a US military base. Regardless of our political likes and antipathies and abstracting from the television we watched. When President Donald Trump passed through Warsaw in July 2017, he was applauded by crowds along the route, and when he complimented the Poles by saying that “the history of Poland is the history of people who have never lost hope, who have never been broken and who have never forgotten who they are”, this message was repeated by all Polish editorial boards. Emotions also ran high during the visit of Barack Obama, who on 4 June 2014 was the most important guest at the official celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of the partly free elections and gathered crowds at Warsaw’s Castle Square.
One of the objectives of the visit by president Duda and prime minister Tusk on 12 March was to obtain reaffirmation of security assurances, especially in the context of presidential contender Donald Trump’s earlier words about Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine. – The White House’s assurances sounded appropriate and reassuring, so the goal was achieved. However, for the American public, the war in Ukraine ceased to be a hot topic some time ago, which partly explains why the visit by Polish politicians is not resonating in the media here. Republicans are taking the migration crisis to the campaign banner, and the barrier on the Texas-Mexico border is, especially in the South, the number one topic. The Democrats, on the other hand, are dreading the consequences of Donald Trump’s return to the White House and strongly emphasise his assault on the right to legal abortion and even the availability of the IVF procedure. The war in Europe no longer ignites emotions, although on a rational level Putin’s aggressive policy arouses opposition from citizens on both sides of the American dispute.\ – underlines prof. Anna Pacześniak, Institute of European Studies of the University of Wrocław.
Complied by Katarzyna Górowicz-Maćkiewicz
