Poland courts Canada as Warsaw hedges against uncertainty over US security role

Poland and Canada pledged deeper defense cooperation during talks in Ottawa Wednesday, with Poland’s defense minister, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, meeting his Canadian counterpart David McGuinty for talks on arms-industry links and Canada’s participation in the EU’s SAFE defense financing program.

The move comes as Warsaw continues to widen its network of security partners beyond its traditional reliance on the United States.

“Canada is closer to Europe than ever before,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said after talks in Ottawa. “Canada is taking — and will continue to take — greater responsibility for Europe’s security.” He said the two sides discussed Canadian investment in Poland’s defense sector, purchases from Polish manufacturers, and possible Polish investment projects in Canada.

Poland is also this year’s “spotlight nation” at Canada’s CanSec defense trade fair, giving Warsaw a platform to promote its defense industry to North American buyers.

Expanding outside US alliance

The visit comes as Poland is strengthening ties not only with Canada, but also with the UK, France, and other European partners. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk travelled to London to sign a new UK-Poland defense and security treaty focused on Russia, cybersecurity, hybrid attacks, and missile defense.

The Canadian track is part of the same logic. In May, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney met Tusk on the sidelines of the European Political Community summit in Armenia, where the two discussed deeper cooperation in energy, aerospace, and defense. Carney also invited Tusk to visit Canada later this year.

Earlier this year, Canada welcomed Poland’s accession to the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism, a platform focused on countering foreign information manipulation and interference. Ottawa said the two countries also discussed defense, nuclear and wind energy, critical minerals, security, and opportunities for defense-industrial cooperation through the EU’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) instrument.

In April, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski warned that US President Donald Trump’s repeated remarks about possibly leaving NATO should be “taken seriously.”

Sikorski has also criticized what he called US attempts to impose values on Europe and interfere in allies’ domestic politics. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in February, he said tensions were growing across the Atlantic and called US political intervention in Poland “completely outrageous.”

That does not mean Poland is abandoning the United States. The US remains Poland’s most important military ally, and Warsaw has invested heavily in American weapons systems. But the new pattern is clear: Poland is no longer building its security posture around Washington alone.

Instead, Tusk’s government is assembling a wider network of guarantees: deeper EU defense funding, a new security treaty with the UK, stronger ties with France and Germany, continued support for Ukraine, and now more explicit engagement with Canada as a transatlantic-but-non-US partner.