For the first time in the group's 17-year history, the G20 summit in Johannesburg last month was marked by a complete absence of the United States from the negotiating table. The situation was made even more astonishing by the fact that the meeting took place just days before the US government assumed another year-long presidency of the G20; he is preparing for next year's summit at the Trump National Doral resort in Miami.
As President Donald Trump's administration rethinks its role in the G20, it can take one simple step to make the group better and more closely aligned with U.S. interests: invite Poland to participate as a full member. During President Karol Nawrocki's visit to Washington in September, Trump extended an invitation to next year's summit. However, Poland should be there not just as a guest and observer, but also as an active participant capable of shaping the agenda.
The G20 is a strange, largely informal and loosely structured organization that emerged from previous meetings of the G7 and G8 and currently includes the 19 largest economies, in addition to the European Union and the African Union. The first summit took place in Washington after the 2008 global financial crisis, and plenty of evidence suggests that the deals struck at the meeting played a critical role in preventing the crisis from dragging the world back into another Great Depression.
There are many criticisms that can be made about the forum. Smaller countries have good reason to fear the realpolitik that the new great power alliance has brought back into the supposedly multilateral, rules-based international system. The G20 is trying to deflect the allegations by “engaging” through numerous discussions with civil society organizations, women's rights groups, trade unions and other organizations. For Trump's United States, an organization that pays lip service to today's progressive issues—climate, health care, and equality—is naturally suspect. Apart from the president's hostility to South Africa's leadership, the meeting's agenda is the main reason for this year's US boycott.
However, it seems safe to assume that the G20 is here to stay, despite the current crisis. As a result, the United States should not turn away from the forum, but shift its center of gravity towards friendly and like-minded countries. Promoting full membership for Poland is the simplest and most direct way to achieve this goal.
Poland fully meets the requirements for membership. This year it became the world's 20th largest economy, and Poland's real income is on par with Japan. Poland is the most important regional power in a part of the world that recently faced the most serious challenge to world peace and international order since 1945 – Russia's war against Ukraine – and yet does not have a representative at the forum, unlike Russia. And finally, Poland is America's most reliable and consistent ally on the European continent.
Bringing Poland to the table, along with France, Germany, Britain and Italy, would correct a centuries-old blind spot in US and Western policy that has reduced Central and Eastern Europe to a great-power entity rather than a geopolitical force with free agency.
Giving a voice to Poland also means giving a voice to Ukraine, whose survival – as Polish political elites understood back in the 1920s – was essential to Poland's own statehood. This should give a voice to the many small but important Nordic and Baltic countries with which Poland shares basic strategic views. And given the G20's focus on the economy, it should also give a voice to the only major European economy with a recent track record of major structural reforms and consistently strong growth rates.
China is unlikely to encounter resistance to Poland's entry into the EU, as Warsaw's relations with Beijing have been as cordial and constructive as possible, given the realities of China's support for Russian military efforts. Russia, of course, will throw a tantrum. However, it would be a completely tolerable outcome if Russia suddenly began to boycott the meetings due to the presence of Poland. The Kremlin has not been a bona fide participant in G20 meetings for some time, and relying on Vladimir Putin's Russia to cope with, say, the next global financial crisis would require a healthy dose of naivety.
If the United States is seeking a constructive reset of its relationship with the G20 after its absence from Johannesburg (perhaps that's a big if), there are few better options than using next year's forum to elevate Europe's most trusted partner, a friend and ally of Washington.
Dalibor Rogach is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC.
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