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Europe Will Be Watching Trump’s Visit to a Right-Tilting Poland - The New York Times

posted onJuly 5, 2017
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Article snippet: WARSAW — Polish officials are bragging: On President Trump’s way to the Poland first, choosing it over more powerful American allies like Germany, France or Britain. “We have a new success, Trump’s visit,” Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of the governing party and Poland’s true power broker, said in a speech last week. Mr. Trump’s visit, he said, is causing other European countries to “envy” Poland. That remains to be seen. Mr. Trump’s last visit to Europe in May unnerved American allies, causing some leaders to rethink the United States’ relationship with the Continent. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has already said that she expects difficult talks with Mr. Trump when he arrives in Hamburg on Friday for the G-20 economic summit meeting. For Mr. Trump, the stop in Poland on Thursday is something of an appetizer before the main course, a visit to a friendly right-wing, populist government with a kindred approach on any number of key issues, from immigration to global warming and coal mining. Opponents worry that the visit will be seen as a tacit endorsement of a Polish government that has been criticized by its European Union partners for moves to co-opt the news media, its political opponents and, most recently, the courts. Some fear that the visit may further widen a fissure between East and West in the European Union, which Mr. Trump has disparaged previously, and embolden leaders like Mr. Kaczynski and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, who has been si... Link to the full article to read more

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