Americans Cutting Support for Poland. Is This The End of US-backed Defense Procurement for Warsaw?

Leaner New Budget

The 2026 fiscal year begins in the United States at the end of September. That’s when the new budgets, subject to approval by Congress, among others, take effect. The State Department also has its own budget, which funds, among other things, Foreign Military Financing (FMF) programmes for America’s closest allies. The administration has submitted its draft to the relevant congressional committees.

Under the initial outline, the State Department would allocate $5.2 billion for FMF in the new budget, intended for key U.S. allies such as Israel, Egypt, and Jordan. Last year, nearly $6.1 billion was earmarked for FMF—almost $1 billion more. In FY 2025, $5.3 billion went to the Middle East, $298 million to Europe, and over $212 million to Asia. Poland, despite its ally status, would receive zero dollars under FMF. It’s worth noting that FMF funds are used, among other things, to purchase U.S. military equipment. In 2023, for example, Poland received roughly $200 million in FMF for used Abrams tanks—funds that were part of supplemental aid tied to assistance for Ukraine, not from the regular U.S. budget. The new administration, however, is not working on any additional aid packages.

But that’s not the only cut the Trump administration is planning. In 2025, FMF loans and loan guarantees for military equipment purchases totaled $16 billion. Poland has made use of these funds when acquiring AH-64E Apache Guardians and Patriot air defense systems and once financed 48 F-16 multirole fighters in this way. To illustrate the scale of FMF-backed credit purchases: for the AH-64E Apache Guardian alone, Poland received $3.08 billion in 2024. Since 2022, Poland has obtained over $7 billion (more than 26 billion PLN) in FMF credit financing for U.S. military equipment, making it one of the largest beneficiaries of the FMF loan programme.

Europe Loses, Asia Gains

The FY 2026 plan envisions reducing FMF loan and guarantee authority to $8 billion and prioritizing loans and guarantees for recipients in the Asia-Pacific region. Under this mechanism, Taiwan is slated to receive $2 billion in loans and $2 billion in guarantees; Jordan is guaranteed $1 billion in loans and $1 billion in guarantees; and another $2 billion in loans and guarantees will go primarily to Asia-Pacific partners, though others are not excluded.

Asia is designated as a key priority in the document. Back in 2025 Ukraine was placed alongside by the US administration.

The absence of financing mechanisms for arms purchases could reduce Poland’s interest in buying U.S. military hardware—especially large contracts that exceed what the Polish Ministry of Defense can fund directly from its own budget. It is worth noting, however, that the final form of the budget may differ after consultations in Congress. Nonetheless, these stated priorities clearly reflect Donald Trump’s foreign-policy aims, which do not designate Poland as a closest ally, nor Europe as a priority region.