The next European country in Trump’s sights for a Maga makeover

Donald Trump is suddenly looking very lonely on this side of the Atlantic. In April, Hungary turfed out the US President’s major conservative ally in Europe. At the Nato summit earlier this month, Trump alienated even Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s ideologically aligned prime minister, in a spat over a photo. And now, after over a year of belittling and threatening America’s European allies, even traditionally close nations like Germany are openly criticising him – knowing that their publics largely dislike him. Yet Trump and Maga are not throwing in the towel when it comes to their declared project of “restoring Europe’s civilisational self-confidence and Western identity” through spreading their own conservative values. The US still has one major cheerleader on the continent. Poland’s new president, Karol Nawrocki, is culturally aligned with the right-wing ideology promoted by Trump’s White House. While he ran as an independent, the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, which was in power from 2015 to 2023, backs him. As President, Nawrocki does not run the government of Poland, which is led by the more liberal Donald Tusk and his Civic Coalition. However, the President has sway over foreign and defence policy and holds important powers of blocking and shaping it through appointments and vetoes. He is trying to expand the currently limited powers of the presidency. In an echo of Trump’s America First agenda, Nawrocki came to office under the slogan “Poland First! The Polish People First!” and shares a similarly restrictive outlook on immigration, civil rights and women’s healthcare. The former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán supported similar white Christian nationalist politics and was a regular speaker at the Trump-aligned CPAC conference. JD Vance even travelled to Budapest to support him during this year’s election campaign. His defeat marked a blow for Maga, which had counted on him to spread its social and cultural values in Europe. Trump’s ties to Poland’s president Now Trump’s support is helping to spearhead this far-right resurgence in Poland. Trump openly supported Nawrocki’s election, welcoming him to the Oval Office even before his win and so breaking a convention of not interfering in allied countries’ democracies. Their connection has only deepened in recent months, with Nawrocki accepting a personal invitation from Trump to attend his 4 July birthday fight at the White House, a decision the head of Nawrocki’s International Policy Bureau attributed to the countries’ “shared values.” Nawrocki and his wife, Marta, during a mass at St John’s Archcathedral in Warsaw, after he was sworn in as president (Photo: Sergei Gapon / AFP) Nawrocki was the only sitting head of state to attend March’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas. He will speak at this weekend’s inaugural CPAC Great Britain. The US has escalated its pro-conservative agenda in Europe, announcing that it would provide up to $5m (£3.7m) to European civil society groups that “address national sovereignty, migration, censorship, and lawfare challenges in line with our shared political philosophy, law, and Western heritage”. Nawrocki’s movement is throwing its support behind the White House’s agenda, trying to pivot the country to align with these views on sovereignty and migration in particular. Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of PiS, backed Poland joining Trump’s so-called Board of Peace to rule Gaza, asking the government to pay the $1 billion fee, claiming Poland “must be on the best possible terms with the United States”. The government refused, saying the country should not become a “vassal” of the US. Nawrocki’s spokesman also criticised the speaker of Poland’s parliament for refusing to support Trump’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize and saying that he did not deserve the award. Splitting Polish society The influence of Maga is widening ideological splits in the Polish government and society, with Nawrocki choosing the US over Europe. Nawrocki has vetoed almost 40 bills passed by parliament, including one that would have granted Poland €44 billion in EU loans for defence spending. Nawrocki claimed Poland would be in the EU’s debt and lose sovereignty as a result. He also claimed it would damage relations with Washington, as the loans were to be spent in the EU. Poland receives one of the highest levels of imports of US arms in the EU, including a $4.6 billion contract to purchase 32 F-35 fighter jets. At the same time, Nawrocki has thrown his support behind the US’s National Security Strategy that called on European countries to spend money on their own defence. Poland spent 4.48 per cent of its GDP on defence in 2025, the highest in the EU. Nawrocki has said he deliberately withheld approval of Poland’s updated National Security Strategy to revise it in line with the US approach. Tusk, in contrast, pushed back against the claims in the US document, writing in a message to his “Dear American friends” that: “Europe is your closest ally, not your problem. And we have common enemies. At least that’s how it has been in the last 80 years. We need to stick to this; this is the only reasonable strategy of our common security. Unless something has changed.” Poland’s Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, has clashed repeatedly with the President (Photo: Wojtek Radwanski / AFP) Maga losing friends across the continent Maga’s growing ties with Poland come at a time when other European right-wing leaders are becoming more critical of Trump, and the far right is falling in popularity in recent elections. In France, Jordan Bardella, of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National party, refused to speak at CPAC last year after former Trump aide Steve Bannon gave what looked like a Hitler salute on stage. In Germany, where only last year prominent Maga figures Elon Musk and Vance gave their backing to the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD), its leaders have distanced themselves from the White House over the unpopular war in Iran and threats to invade Greenland. But perhaps Trump’s behaviour towards the Italian prime minister best encapsulates just how far the US’s reputation has fallen in Europe. Meloni, who was the only European leader with a front-row seat at his inauguration and formerly dubbed the “Trump whisperer”, took the step of posting a video addressed to the President after he claimed she “begged” him for a photo with him to improve her popularity ratings. Calling Trump’s claim “completely made up”, Meloni said on Instagram: “I am stunned that he behaves this way towards allies.” “Neither I nor Italy ever beg,” she said: “My popularity is none of your concern. I suggest you focus on yours.” With Trump’s allies falling away, Poland will only become a more vital pillar in Maga’s mission to “cultivate resistance” to what it terms Europe’s “civilisational erasure”. Whether Poland joins that mission remains to be seen.