How many Polacks does it take to shoot down a Russky ballistic missile? |
The Trump administration will announce Thursday an agreement with the government of Poland to sell the Eastern European ally American-manufactured surface-to-air missile systems. The agreement comes seven years after the Obama administration removed a group of missile launchers from near the Russian border with Poland after Moscow objected to their placement.
According to Trump administration officials, the president and his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda, will announce the countries have signed a memorandum of understanding that will move forward with Polands acquisition of an unknown number of Patriot missile systems. The United States has sold the Patriot system to other American allies in the past, including Germany and Taiwan.
Polish state media first reported the agreement Wednesday.
On Thursday, Trump will hold a bilateral meeting with President Duda in Warsaw, where the American president will also deliver a speech touting Polands national identity and history of standing up for itself, say administration sources.
Trump will travel later on Thursday to Hamburg, the site of this weekends G20 economic summit, where on Friday he plans to hold a bilateral meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin. It will be the first meeting between these two leaders, and its likely among the issues Trump and Putin will discuss will be this missile-system deployment.
Putins anger with both the missile launchers in Poland and a planned American missile-defense radar system in neighboring Czech Republic prompted the Obama administration to pull back from these commitments, originally made during the George W. Bush administration.
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