Speaking to the Polish people in Warsaw Thursday morning, President Donald Trump reaffirmed U.S. commitments to Europe and promised to work together with allies to defend the values of family, freedom, country, and God.
The president heaped praise on Poland, a country he said “has never forgotten who they are,” and gave an explicit commitment to Article 5, the mutual defense commitment of the NATO treaty.
But most of the speech was a call to Europe to stand strong with the United States in defense of the West.
“The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive,” Trump said. “Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?”
“We can have the largest economies and the most lethal weapons anywhere on Earth,” the president added, “but if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive.”
Trump urged Europe to resist threats to those values such as Islamic extremism, and challenged Russia to join the “community of responsible nations” in their efforts.
“We are fighting hard against radical Islamic terrorism, and we will prevail,” Trump said. “We cannot accept those who reject our values and who use hatred to justify violence against the innocent. … We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere, and its support for hostile regimes, including Syria and Iran, and to instead join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and in defense of civilization itself.
Trump also broadened the scope of a familiar fight in America’s domestic politics, calling “the steady creep of government bureaucracy” a threat to nations on both sides of the Atlantic.
“The West became great not because of paperwork and regulations, but because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destinies.”
President Trump will next travel to Germany to discuss economic and foreign policy with Group of 20 leaders, who are expected to criticize him for rhetoric distancing America from its commitments in central Europe. Thursday’s speech, with its focus on shared responsibility for global challenges rather than “America First” rhetoric, was intended to reassure NATO allies that the United States remains committed to the region.
“Our citizens did not win freedom together, did not survive horrors together, did not face down evil together, only to lose our freedom to a lack of pride and confidence in our values,” Trump said. “We did not and we will not. We will never back down.”
