The former US president’s reelection campaign revealed that Donald Trump and Polish President, Andrzej Duda discussed the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East over dinner Wednesday in New York.

Trump, hosted Duda, at his Trump Tower property in Manhattan to discuss Duda’s proposal for NATO countries to increase their target for defence spending from two per cent of GDP to three per cent.

Trump has often criticized NATO and said its members do not pay what he calls their fair share.

“They also discussed the war between Russia and Ukraine, the conflict with Israel in the Middle East, and many other topics having to do with getting to world peace,” the Trump campaign said in a statement.

When not tied up in legal proceedings, the Republican White House candidate has been conducting a kind of shadow diplomacy, as other countries prepare for the possibility of a second Trump presidency.

He has been taking meetings with global leaders and lashing out against the foreign policy of his November opponent, President Joe Biden.

Trump discussed NATO policy and the Ukraine war with British Foreign Secretary David Cameron last week, and entertained Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at his Florida residence Mar-a-Lago last month.

Duda and Trump were close allies during the 77-year-old’s previous Oval Office tenure, with Poland prioritizing its relationship with the United States — sometimes to the detriment of its ties with the European Union.

Conservative Duda even proposed building a “Fort Trump” US military base on Polish soil.
AFP