President Duda says Trump best chance for Ukraine peace – and urges allies to stay calm over tariffs ‘shock therapy’

Poland’s outgoing President Andrzej Duda has kept few revelations for the final weeks of his presidency.

Ten years in office – a tenure spanning Donald Trump’s first and current term – his admiration for the incumbent leader of the free world remains undimmed. As is his conviction that Ukraine’s only chance of peace lies with the US leader.

In an interview with Sky News in the presidential palace in Warsaw, President Duda described Mr Trump‘s tariff policy as “shock therapy”, a negotiating tactic from a man “of huge business and commercial success” that he now brings to the arena of politics.

That may not be what European politicians are used to, Mr Duda says, but Donald Trump is answerable to the US taxpayer and not to his European counterparts, and allies must “stay calm” in the face of this new transatlantic modus operandi.

As for negotiations with Vladimir Putin, President Duda is sure that Donald Trump has the measure of the Russian leader, while refusing to be drawn on the competencies of his chief negotiator Steve Witkoff who landed on Friday in Moscow for further talks with Vladimir Putin – a man Mr Witkoff has described as “trustworthy” and “not a bad guy”.

Putting the kybosh on Nord Stream 2 in his first term and thwarting President Putin’s energy ambitions via his state-owned energy giant Gazprom are evidence enough that Mr Trump knows where to hit so it hurts, Mr Duda says.

Given the failures of Europe’s leaders to negotiate peace through the Minsk accords, he believes the onus now falls on Donald Trump.

“If anyone is able to force the end of Russia’s war, it is most likely only the President of the United States,” he says.

“The question is whether he will be determined enough to do that in a way – because it is also very important here in Europe being a neighbour of Russian aggression against Ukraine – that the peace is fair and lasting.”

President Duda has just weeks left in office before the country votes for a new president in May.

Originally from Poland’s conservative Law and Justice party, one of the few points of alignment with the liberal and euro-centric prime minister Donald Tusk is the emphasis both place on security.

Hopes for ‘Fort Trump’ base

So did the announcement this week that the US would be withdrawing from the Jasionka air base near Rzeszow, which is the key logistics hub for allied support into Ukraine, come as a shock to the president, as it did to many Poles?

Not at all, Mr Duda says.

“We were warned that the change was planned. I have not received any information from [the US] about decreasing the number of American soldiers. Quite the opposite.”

He referred back to talks with US defence secretary Pete Hegseth in February, saying: “We discussed strengthening the American presence in Poland, and I mentioned the idea of creating a huge base of US troops. Then, we called it Fort Trump. I do still hope that this idea will be implemented.”

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Andrzej Duda has staked his legacy on close ties with Donald Trump at a time when many NATO allies are considering a form of de-Americanisation, as they consider new trading realities and build up their own defence capabilities.

Poland has proven itself a model in terms of defence spending, investing more than any other NATO member – a massive 4.7% of GDP for 2025. But as the case of Canada shows, even the best of friendships can turn sour.

The Canadian conservative party, once dubbed a maple MAGA, was flying high in the polls before Donald Trump decided to savage links with his closest trading partner.

Now in the space of just a few months they are floundering behind the ruling liberal party. Is this a cautionary tale for Poland’s conservative Law and Justice party?

“For Canadian conservatives it is a kind of side effect of President Trump’s very tough economic policy,” Mr Duda says.

“In Poland, this does not have such an impact. The security issues are the most important. That’s the most important issue in Poland.”