WARSAW: President Donald Trump affirmed US commitment to the defence of Nato allies on Thursday in a Warsaw speech that gently criticised Russia, and said Western civilisation must stand up to “those who would subvert and destroy it”.

In his second trip to Europe as president and shortly before leaving for a potentially fractious G20 meeting in Germany, Trump appeared at pains to soothe US allies after unnerving them in May by failing to endorse the principle of collective defence enshrined in Article Five of the Nato treaty.

As a presidential candidate, Trump called Nato obsolete, but he has since changed his position on the alliance’s relevance.

The president also had tough words for Russia on Thursday, though he did not fully endorse allegations, backed by US intelligence agencies, that Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election that he won.

Trump meets President Vladimir Putin for the first time face-to-face on Friday in Hamburg, the site of the G20 summit.

“We urge Russia to cease its destabilising activities in Ukraine and elsewhere and its support for hostile regimes including Syria and Iran, and to instead join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and the defence of civilization itself,” he said.

The Kremlin said Russia was not guilty of any destablising activity.

The brief visit to Warsaw, to take part in a gathering of regional heads of state, was billed by the White House as an effort to patch up relations with European allies after a tense Nato summit in May.

Trump was received by enthusiastic crowds on a central Warsaw square, some 15,000 people according to police estimates, many arriving on busses organised by parliamentary deputies of the ruling conservative Law and Justice party.

Many carried US flags or placards with photographs of Duda and Trump. Some wore t-shirts with American flag colours.

Trump reiterated criticism of low defence spending levels by many European nations and praised Poland for meeting the alliance’s target of spending two percent of economic output on defence.

“To those who would criticise our tough stance, I would point out that the United States has demonstrated not merely with words but with its actions that we stand firmly behind Article 5, the mutual defence commitment,” he said to applause.

Article five of Nato’s 1949 founding charter states that an attack on any member is an attack on all, and allies must render assistance, military if need be.

The stopover was a major diplomatic coup for Poland’s conservative government, which has faced mounting criticism from Brussels over its democratic record and a refusal to accept migrants fleeing war in the Middle East.

The eurosceptic administration agrees with Trump on issues such as migration, climate change, coal mining or abortion, and wants EU institutions to give back some of their powers to national governments.

“We are against abortion, we promote life. These values are shared by president Trump. There is no other leader who would evoke God in his speeches so frequently,” said Lukasz, a 30-year-old teacher from the seaside city of Szczecin, who travelled to Warsaw with 40 others.

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2017