Win-Win for Warsaw and Washington: Poland Wants More US Engagement in the Three Seas Initiative
When Poland’s new President Karol Nawrocki meets President Donald Trump in Washington on September 3, the focus will be on bilateral relations and NATO. But officials in Poland’s presidential administration have also suggested that the meeting is an opportunity for renewing the United States’ involvement in the Three Seas Initiative (3SI). The conservative Nawrocki has positioned himself as Trump’s main ideological ally in Central and Eastern Europe and could use this to get the administration to re-engage in the region and the 3SI.
Washington has been a key supporter of the 3SI—a regional format to improve infrastructure between the Baltic, Black, and Adriatic Seas, with a focus on energy, transport, and digitization—since its inception in 2015. Trump attended its second summit in Warsaw in 2017. It was included as a priority in the US Black Sea Security Act passed with bipartisan support in 2023. However, US involvement has decreased.
Nawrocki is well viewed in MAGA circles. Trump openly supported him in the June presidential election, hosting him in the Oval Office. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem traveled to Poland to publicly endorse him, and his campaign was amplified by MAGA networks, including the Conservative Political Action Conference. During the campaign, Nawrocki used MAGA-inspired rhetoric,
However, any greater US involvement will hinge on the 3SI’s ability to deliver results. On energy, its members’ diversification away from Russia has been advanced with the construction of two liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals in Krk, Croatia and in Paldiski, Estonia. The Gas Interconnector Poland-Lithuania now links the two countries’ grids, and consequently the Baltic countries and Finland to the EU gas market.
On transportation, the flagship Via Carpathia highway project, expected to be finished by 2030, will connect the port of Klaipeda in Lithuania with that of Constanta in Romania. Via Baltica will link the Baltic countries with Poland by 2027 and the Rail-2-Sea project will establish a rail connection between Constanta and Gdansk in Poland. There has been less progress on digital infrastructure, with the Three Seas Digital Highway project supposed to develop a fiber backbone on hold due to the war in Ukraine.
Renewed US involvement in the 3SI would be consistent with Trump’s America First agenda.
There are also political divergences among 3SI members. Notably, Hungary has not joined the joint condemnation of Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Coordination is also complicated by the uneven involvement of the members. The Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund, launched in 2019, started with around $1 billion from nine countries, but several have yet to contribute to it and private capital also remains limited.
Renewed US involvement in the 3SI would be consistent with Trump’s America First agenda. Financing regional interconnectivity and pipeline infrastructure projects would provide opportunities for selling more American energy and technology in Central and Eastern Europe. For example, the energy pillar could be used to promote American LNG and small modular reactors (SMRs) as a solution to definitively replace Russian gas, on which the region is still dependent. Romania’s pioneering project with the American company NuScale that will bring SMRs online in 2029 is an example to be replicated across the region.
Investment in transport routes is necessary to ensure military mobility in the region, something crucial for a NATO in which Europe is more responsible and autonomous. Digitization projects could facilitate exports of advanced American technologies, starting with artificial intelligence, which is one of the objectives of the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan.
A strong partnership between the United States and the 3SI countries would also likely curb China’s influence in the region acquired through the Belt and Road Initiative.
Championing the 3SI in Washington would give Nawrocki the opportunity to establish himself as a leader in Central and Eastern Europe and to maximize Poland’s geopolitical importance at a time when the European security architecture is undergoing a major overhaul. Driving the revival of the 3SI would reaffirm Poland’s status as a pillar of stability on NATO’s eastern flank. This is especially important given that Nawrocki was not among the European leaders present at the recent White House meeting to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine.
Ukraine’s reconstruction should be at the core of any discussion regarding the 3SI.
Ukraine’s reconstruction should be at the core of any discussion regarding the 3SI. Since 2022, Ukraine and Moldova became associate members, and cooperation with Kyiv was at the top of the agenda of the 3SI Riga summit in 2023. Poland has consistently pushed to include both in plans for developing regional infrastructure so as to anchor them to the West.
For the United States, critical minerals is a key element in this discussion as Ukraine has some of the largest deposits of rare earths, lithium, titanium, and graphite in Europe. In April, Kyiv and Washington signed an agreement to create a joint investment fund and to give the United States preferential access to new mineral projects in Ukraine in exchange for financial support and additional military aid. Developing further through 3SI projects Ukraine’s extractive capacities and the required infrastructure for integration into Western critical-minerals supply chains would reduce the reliance of transatlantic countries on China and Russia.
Poland successfully urging the United State to renew it involvement in the 3SI would be a win-win situation for both. The initiative offers a way for Washington to further its agenda of derisking while reducing Russian and Chinese leverage in Central and Eastern Europe as well as anchoring Ukraine in Western supply chains. More American LNG, SMRs, and AI technology in Central and Eastern Europe, and joint ventures on critical minerals, all through a secure infrastructure partly financed by the United States, would contribute to making the countries between the Baltic, Black, and Adriatic seas more prosperous and secure.
Bogdan Cozma is a program coordinator in the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
Antonia-Laura Pup is a research assistant in the Center for Security Studies, Georgetown University. She previously worked as the advisor of the president of the Defense Committee in the parliament of Romania.