President Trump on Wednesday hosted Poland’s new president, Karol Nawrocki, at the White House and assured him that the US will maintain a robust military presence in Poland and even offered to send more troops to the country.
“We’ll put more there if they want,” Trump told reporters when asked about the US troop presence in Poland. “They’ll be staying in Poland.”
According to State Department numbers from January 2025, the US has about 10,000 troops in Poland on a rotational basis. The US significantly surged the number of troops it had deployed in Poland following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and has maintained those levels.
Before the Russian invasion, the US had about 5,500 troops in Poland under a deal signed in 2019 that increased the US rotational deployments by 1,000 troops. In 2023, the US formally established its first permanent military base in Poland, known as the US Army V Corps Headquarters Forward Command Post.
The command post was first established in 2020 but didn’t become officially permanent until 2023, marking the first permanent US military presence on NATO’s so-called “Eastern Flank.” Under the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, NATO agreed not to establish a permanent military presence east of the German border.
