EU nation wants a depleted uranium industry, says the PM

Mateusz Morawiecki is eager to manufacture toxic tank ammunition in Poland. After meeting Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington on Tuesday, Morawiecki traveled to Anniston, Alabama, home to the US Army depot that services all tracked vehicles, including the Abrams tanks. Morawiecki is also "striving" to have a factory where DU ammunition can be produced. The dense metal is used by US and UK tankers as an armor-penetrating round, and NATO troops have complained of a spike in cancer rates after spending time in places where DU ammunition had been used. Morawiecki asked for an "additional presence of several thousand soldiers," as well as more bases and warehouses for US equipment and weapons being sent to Ukraine.

Poland is currently a logistics hub for the NATO effort to arm Kiev, though the US-led bloc insists it is not directly involved in Ukraine’s conflict with Russia. Warsaw has sought a permanent US presence for years, trying to woo then-President Donald Trump in 2018. Poland has ordered 250 new Abrams tanks and another 116 modernized tanks, to replace almost all of its Soviet-era T-72s it had turned over to Ukraine. Polish media have also shed some light on Polish President Andrzej Morawiecki’s puzzling presence in the US while President Joe Biden is out of the country. The visit was “suddenly accelerated” by the Americans as a counter to French President Emmanuel Macron’s trip to China last week. Morawiecki’s trip is “gaining even more importance” after Macron’s comments that the EU won’t be a “vassal” of Washington when it comes to confronting China over the status of Taiwan.