If elected, Trump should trade Germany for Poland in European Quad

Indeed, if elected, Donald Trump should make a Quad trade of Scholz for Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. He should do so because Tusk and Polish President Andrzej Duda are highly reliable American allies who understand something that Scholz plainly does not. Namely, that the endurance of NATO and the post-WWII trans-Atlantic alliance, arguably the most successful in history, requires investment and tough choices.

Statistics tell much of the tale.

The NATO defense spending target is 2% of GDP per year. It’s something that Trump hasn’t exactly been quiet about. Poland will more than double that target, spending 4.1% on defense in 2024, rising to nearly 4.7% in 2025. As a percentage of GDP, this investment is far greater than that of any other NATO member, including the U.S. But, Poland also spends more than 50% of its defense budget on equipment (NATO’ ‘s target here is for a member to spend at least 20% of its defense budget on equipment). These figures reflect Poland’s concern with bolstering Eastern Europe’s defense against prospective Russian aggression and sharing a greater burden of NATO responsibilities with the U.S. Now contrast Warsaw’s approach with that of Germany.

Today, Scholz’s much-vaunted “Zeitenwende” pledge in 2022 to take a lead for European security is long forgotten. Instead, Scholz has forced a paring back of defense spending boosts so that Germany will only just meet the NATO 2% target in 2025. The Chancellor is also cutting military aid to Ukraine even as the prospect of a second Trump presidency looms large and, with him, legitimate and long-standing calls for Europe to do more for its own security. Moreover, Germany’s existing support for Ukraine is woefully deficient compared to what Berlin should be doing.

It’s not just on European security where Scholz continues to prove his uselessness as an American ally. He is also weakening the EU’s negotiating stance in the face of Chinese electric vehicle dumping into the EU market. Alongside bought-and-paid-for Chinese prostitutes such as Spain’s Pedro Sanchez and Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Scholz and company are helping Xi Jinping to slowly bleed out their own political union and the trans-Atlantic alliance.

The Biden administration doesn’t appear to get this. Or if it does, it certainly doesn’t care. Before Biden’s departure for Berlin, a senior administration official told reporters that “Germany has been an incredibly close ally and partner over the past few decades and has risen to the moment in the last three-plus years of this administration … Biden feels he has accomplished a lot by working closely with Chancellor Scholz on a range of issues.”

Such as?

Scholz now says he wants to negotiate with Vladimir Putin towards ending the war in Ukraine. This is not exactly a great idea. The idea of Scholz negotiating with Putin is the political equivalent of a blind antelope drinking water from a river infested by starving Nile crocodiles. Put simply, anyone who goes into the political water with Scholz is going to come out very bloody.

Yes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is both arrogant and ungrateful about Western support. Yes, Trump is delusional about his own ability to persuade Putin to make concessions to Ukraine. But what Ukraine and America need from Europe is not Scholz’s pathetic begging for Putin to have his cake and eat it, but rather for all European nations to boost their support for Ukraine and their commitments to NATO.

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Poland is doing that and then some. Germany is not. America needs allies relevant to the moment. Poland’s economy might be smaller than Germany’s, but Warsaw certainly values strategic reality and its American alliance far more than Berlin.

Poland should take Germany’s place at the European Quad table.