Poland says a planned permanent US military base in the country would be designed for around 5,000 American troops, as Warsaw and Washington move from discussing whether to establish the facility towards negotiating its concrete shape.
Deputy Defence Minister Paweł Zalewski disclosed the figure on Friday following three days of talks in Washington alongside fellow deputy defence minister Magdalena Sobkowiak-Czarnecka.
“We are talking about a permanent base for 5,000 soldiers. This is the level outlined by President Trump,” Zalewski said at a press briefing.
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Zalewski went further in describing the status of the project, saying the negotiations were no longer about whether the permanent base would be created.
“We are not negotiating the decision on whether there should be a base or whether there will be one. That decision has been made,” he said, describing it as the result of efforts by successive Polish governments and presidents to secure a permanent American military presence.
His comments provide the clearest indication yet from the Polish Defence Ministry of the intended scale of the proposed facility.
They do not, however, mean that all decisions needed to establish the base have been completed. Its location, the forces to be stationed there and other practical arrangements remain under discussion, while the timing is linked to Washington’s wider review of its military posture in Europe.
The latest round of talks took place from 23 to 25 September. Poland’s Defence Ministry said the delegation held meetings with US government and defence officials as well as representatives of the American defence industry.
Afterwards, Zalewski said negotiations had advanced.
“We are moving forward; we are already talking about specifics,” he said.
The US review remains an important part of the timetable. According to Zalewski, proposals resulting from it are expected in November, with conclusions expected to be approved by the US defence authorities in December. He said the American review and negotiations with Poland were separate but interconnected processes.
Sobkowiak-Czarnecka had previously said the final decision remained with Trump and confirmed that a shortlist of possible locations existed, while declining to identify them.
Poland has meanwhile already taken formal steps towards establishing the base. In June, the Polish government authorised Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz to pursue the project with Washington and prepare Poland’s proposal, including a suggested location and the costs of providing the necessary infrastructure and logistical support.
Two days later, Kosiniak-Kamysz said the US side had responded positively to Poland’s proposal and was open to establishing a permanent base in the country.
More detailed military discussions have followed. On 10 September, Zalewski met a US delegation headed by Deputy Assistant Secretary of War William Cappelletti Jr., who had been appointed by the Pentagon to lead talks on strengthening the American military presence in Poland.
The two sides agreed to establish working groups for more detailed negotiations. Those talks are being conducted within the framework of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between Poland and the United States.
A permanent base would represent a further development of a substantial American and allied military presence already established in Poland.
Sobkowiak-Czarnecka said on Friday that around 8,000 allied troops were currently stationed in the country, with Americans forming the largest national contingent. That figure includes forces described as continuously present but whose individual units rotate, as well as other allied deployments.
Zalewski stressed that the new negotiations concern something different.
“We are talking about permanent bases; we are not talking about rotational presence,” he said.
The proposed facility has sometimes been referred to politically as “Fort Trump”, reviving a name first associated with Polish efforts to secure a permanent US base during Trump’s first presidency.
President Karol Nawrocki said this week that establishing the base was “only a question of time” and that work was already under way on selecting the infrastructure.
No final location has been announced.
Polish officials have presented an expanded permanent US presence as part of the effort to strengthen NATO’s deterrence on its eastern flank. If implemented at the approximately 5,000-troop scale described by Zalewski, the project would give the long-running Polish effort to secure a permanent American military presence a substantially larger and more concrete form.
