On April 30, 2026, the 16th round of the Strategic Dialogue between Poland and the United States took place in Warsaw. The talks were chaired by Polish Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Robert Kupiecki and US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Allison Hooker.
The Strategic Dialogue is a diplomatic forum that has existed for years to discuss the most important areas of bilateral cooperation. Its 16th edition produced specific agreements beyond standard declarations. On the same day, the TBM machine head arrived in Gdańsk, which will drill a tunnel of just over a kilometre under the seabed of the Gulf of Gdańsk for the offshore pipeline of the FSRU terminal.
During the meeting, Deputy Minister of Climate and Environment Krzysztof Galos and Under Secretary of State Allison Hooker signed a framework agreement on securing supplies in the field of extraction, processing and recycling of critical raw materials, including rare earth metals. Poland is the first European Union country to conclude such a bilateral agreement with the US.
On April 24, 2026, EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič signed an analogous agreement in Washington on behalf of the entire European Union. The Polish agreement thus complements the broader transatlantic deal, but at the national level it gives Warsaw direct access to negotiations with the US Department of Energy on priority raw materials. In practice, this means that Polish companies in the e-mobility and renewable energy sectors can apply for long-term contracts for supplies of lithium, cobalt or nickel from American mines.
By comparison, Germany does not have such a bilateral agreement. Neither does France. Poland has overtaken both countries, leveraging its position as a state bordering Ukraine and a logistics hub for raw materials processed in Central Europe. According to data from the Polish Economic Institute from February 2026, the Polish critical raw materials processing sector (cathodes, electrolytes, permanent magnets) grew by 340 percent between 2023 and 2025, mainly due to investments by LG Energy Solution in Biskupice Podgórne and Umicore in Nysa.
LNG hub
The joint statement published after the meeting by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs contains a key formulation regarding gas. The United States expressed support for Poland’s aspirations to become a regional LNG hub, which would replace the east-west dependency model – historically vulnerable to threats – with a diversified north-south system.
In practice, this means that the Polish concept of a gas hub ceases to be merely a national ambition and becomes part of a transatlantic energy strategy. US support influences the decisions of financial institutions such as the World Bank and the European Investment Bank, which, when granting loans for gas infrastructure, take into account political support from key allies.
Poland’s LNG infrastructure currently includes the President Lech Kaczyński terminal in Świnoujście with a regasification capacity of 6.2 billion cubic metres per year after its expansion completed in 2023. Added to this is the Baltic Pipe, launched in 2022, which allows gas to be sent from Norway via Denmark to Poland. In 2027 (according to Gaz-System’s plan), the FSRU terminal in Gdańsk with a capacity of at least 6.1 bcm per year will come on stream.
Three sources – Świnoujście, Baltic Pipe and Gdańsk – can give Poland a total import capacity of about 18.5 bcm of gas per year, with domestic demand of 15–17 bcm (2025 data). The surplus – about 2–3 bcm – can be exported south and east. In 2025, Ukraine imported a total of 4.2 bcm of gas from the western direction, of which about 1.8 bcm passed through Polish interconnectors at Drozdowice and Hermanowice.
TBM machine
On April 30, 2026, the head of the TBM (Tunnel Boring Machine) arrived at Górki Zachodnie in Gdańsk. From mid-May 2026, the machine will begin drilling a micro-tunnel under the coastal forest, dunes, beach and the bottom of the Gulf of Gdańsk. The tunnel will be just over a kilometre long – according to Gaz-System’s specification, about 1.2 km. A subsea gas pipeline connecting the floating FSRU unit with the onshore part of the investment will be installed inside the tunnel.
This type of technical solution is used to avoid cutting through the beach and dune belt. The TBM machine drills below the surface without disturbing the coastal landscape. The procedure for obtaining an environmental decision for such an investment took 31 months in Poland – from the submission of the application in 2022 to the final decision of the Regional Director for Environmental Protection in Gdańsk in January 2025. During that time, four appeals were lodged by environmental organisations, two of which were dismissed, and two – concerning the protection of cormorants on Sobieszewo Island – were upheld, ordering a change in the timing of work to the bird breeding season in May and June.
An FSRU (Floating Storage and Regasification Unit) is a floating unit permanently moored in the Gulf of Gdańsk. It can receive an LNG carrier (typically 140–170 thousand cubic metres of liquefied gas), store LNG on its deck and regasify it – i.e., convert it back into gas. The planned technological start-up of the terminal is the turn of 2027 and 2028. After commissioning, the infrastructure will send gas received at the terminal to Gaz-System’s national transmission system.
The choice of micro-tunnel technology instead of traditional excavation increases the investment cost by about €47 million, but shortens the construction time of the offshore part from 24 to 14 months. It also eliminates the risk of cutting the beach during the summer bathing season, which, according to the agreement between Gaz-System and the city of Gdańsk, is prohibited between 15 June and 31 August.
Critical raw materials details
The framework agreement signed on April 30, 2026 in Warsaw covers three areas: extraction, processing and recycling of critical raw materials. It is not a trade agreement or a supply agreement – it is a framework for regulatory and technological cooperation. In practice, this means that American mining companies (such as MP Materials, which mines rare earth elements at the Mountain Pass mine in California) will be able to obtain permits for processing in Poland more easily.
Poland already has a NdFeB magnet processing plant (neodymium, iron, boron) in Bydgoszcz, owned by an Italian-Polish joint venture. After the agreement was signed, the US Department of Energy announced in a press release of May 1, 2026, the transfer of technology to this plant for recycling magnets from used wind turbines and electric motors. The transfer of technical documentation and training of 45 employees is to last until the end of 2027.
According to estimates by the Polish Renewable Energy Institute published in March 2026, by 2030 Poland will gain 14 GW of onshore wind capacity (from the current 9.5 GW to 23.5 GW) and 4.5 GW of offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea. Each 3 MW wind turbine contains about 300 kg of permanent magnets. For the planned installations, this means a demand for about 2,200 tonnes of magnets in new onshore wind turbines alone by 2030. Without its own recycling or processing, all imports would have to come from China, which controls 85 percent of the global rare earth elements market.
G20 membership
The United States expressed strong support for Poland’s accession to the G20 as a permanent member. A statement to this effect was included in the section on economic cooperation. Poland expressed gratitude for being invited to participate in the work of the G20 at all levels during the US presidency.
The G20 is a forum of the world’s 19 largest economies plus the European Union. Poland is not currently a member. The only country from Central and Eastern Europe in the G20 is Russia. Poland’s admission would mean a change in the balance of power in the group – either increasing the number of members to 20 plus the EU (excluding Poland as a separate member) or a theoretical need to rename the group. In practice, expansion of the G20 requires the consent of all current members, including Russia and China. US support is a necessary condition, but not sufficient.
The issue of Polish membership in the G20 has been processed since 2024, and the US declaration of April 30, 2026 is the first public support from a country outside the region. Poland’s previous applications in 2017, 2019 and 2022 did not receive support from the administrations of Donald Trump or Joe Biden.
Nuclear energy
The joint statement also includes a provision on supporting the implementation of projects in the field of civilian nuclear energy with the participation of US companies in order to increase electricity generation capacity in Poland. This refers to the Westinghouse project for the nuclear power plant in Lubiatowo-Kopalino (Lubiatowo, Choczewo commune, Pomerania).
The Polish nuclear programme provides for the construction of three units with a total capacity of 4.5 GW. The first unit – according to the 2025 schedule – is to start in 2033. Westinghouse AP1000 is an American technology, but competitive with the French EPR and the South Korean APR1400. The contract for the design and construction of the first power plant was signed between Polish Nuclear Power Plants and Westinghouse in 2023. The contract value is about $20 billion, of which $8 billion is financing from the US EXIM Bank (Ex-Im Bank) approved in January 2026.
During the 16th round of the Strategic Dialogue, no new agreement on nuclear matters was signed. The statement merely confirms the continuation of cooperation. The US side did not commit to increasing financing or accelerating the schedule. Westinghouse is still waiting for a construction permit from the National Atomic Energy Agency – the application was submitted in November 2025, and the procedure lasts on average 24 months.
Impact on energy prices
The statement included wording that the United States supports the supply of reliable, affordable and secure energy. The term „affordable” in US diplomacy does not, however, mean a specific price level. There is no provision in the document on lowering gas prices for Polish consumers or on a regulatory mechanism.
In 2025, the average gas price on the European TTF hub was €42 per MWh. In the same period, the price of LNG supplied from the US (under long-term contracts for PGNiG, now Orlen) was about €36–40 per MWh plus transport and regasification costs. The final price for Polish industrial consumers in 2025, according to Energy Regulatory Office data, was PLN 185 per MWh (approx. €43). For households with G11 tariff – about PLN 220 per MWh (approx. €51).
Will an LNG hub affect prices? Theoretically, increasing supply and diversifying sources can stabilise prices in the longer term. In practice, the price of gas in Europe is set by TTF, which takes into account global LNG prices, imports from Norway and local demand. Poland as a hub could trade gas with neighbours at bilaterally negotiated prices, which for Ukraine or Slovakia could mean lower prices than at TTF, but for Polish consumers the difference may be imperceptible.
The impact of the LNG hub on household prices will not appear until after 2030 at the earliest, provided that Poland actually starts exporting gas on a scale comparable to imports. Currently, the production surplus is small – about 2–3 bcm per year, which in a European market of 400 bcm has no price-forming significance.
