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| - US President Donald Trump hosted Polish President Andrzej Duda at the White House on Wednesday for a controversial meeting just four days ahead of an election in Poland. Duda, a populist Trump ally, is hoping for a pre-election windfall from the talks while the American president is seeking to show that the coronavirus pandemic, which has damaged his own re-election chances, is abating. The meeting is Trump's first with a foreign leader since the COVID-19 pandemic, which has left more than 121,000 people dead in the United States, hit in March. "I don't think we've ever been closer to Poland than right now," Trump told reporters. "I have a very good personal relationship with the president." Duda said it was a "privilege and an honor" to be at White House and he hoped to discuss building an even "stronger alliance." Trump and Duda are to give a joint press conference in the gardens of the White House following the third Oval Office meeting between the two men. Voters in Poland are to go to the polls on Sunday to decide whether to give Duda a second term and the timing of the visit has come in for criticism from his opponents. The chief expectation on the Polish side is a boost in US military assistance -- a constant demand from Warsaw, particularly since Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014. Following Trump's announcement of plans to reduce US troop numbers in Germany, there has been speculation that some of them could be diverted to Poland. According to the Polish newspaper Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, 30 US F-16 fighter jets stationed in Germany could be moved to Poland along with some 2,000 troops. A senior US official cautioned, however, that it would be "premature" to talk about troop deployment in terms of "any specific number to any specific location." Poland will also have to tread carefully so as not to be seen to be taking advantage of Germany, a fellow NATO ally. NATO promised Russia in 1997 not to set up permanent bases in the former eastern bloc. As tensions have grown however, the alliance has rotated troops through front-line countries. Even though the US troops would still be rotated under any scenario, Polish officials have raised the prospect of a more permanent US presence -- perhaps in a facility paid for by Warsaw dubbed "Fort Trump." German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer alluded to the agreement with Russia in an interview to the Atlantic Council on Wednesday. "If for example US troops in Europe are moved to Poland, this must be done with the NATO-Russia pact in mind," she said. "We must not lose sight of this point." Michal Baranowski, director of the Warsaw office of the German Marshall Fund, said the visit could help "mobilize" Duda's voters, and boost support for Trump among Polish American communities ahead of the US election in November. Under fire for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the nationwide protests for racial justice, Trump is facing a tough re-election battle. A New York Times/Siena College poll published on Wednesday had his Democratic opponent Joe Biden with a 14-point lead among registered voters. The hastily arranged visit has come under fire from gay rights campaigners. The right-wing Duda, who is backed by the governing Law and Justice party, has railed against "LGBT ideology," comparing it to communism. Duda is the current frontrunner but the centrist europhile opposition candidate Rafal Trzaskowski has been catching up in the polls. US Representative Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat from Ohio who co-chairs the Congressional Poland Caucus, condemned the visit. "As a Polish-American and someone who deeply values the US-Poland relationship, I am troubled by President Trump's inappropriate efforts to insert himself into Polish domestic politics and boost President Duda's reelection with a White House visit," Kaptur said in a statement. "Unfortunately, President Trump's invitation is not surprising given his favorability toward strongmen and those who undermine democratic institutions," Kaptur said. The timing of the visit was also criticized by Molly Montgomery of the Brookings think tank in Washington. "No US president should meet a foreign leader -- friend or foe -- mere days before she or he stands for election," Montgomery said. "To do so undermines Poland's democratic processes and our own values." jca-cl/bgs
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