Finance News
Europe’s best kept secret: Poland, the region’s economic tiger
Poland President Andrzej Duda joins ‘Mornings with Maria’ at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss the effect Trump’s presidency will have on the global economy.
Nothing seems to get in the way of Poland going from strength to strength despite being part of the sluggish European Union. There are multiple reasons why and many facets, including the country’s outstanding defense spending and its conservative Donald Trump-like approach to illicit immigration.
Late last month, Poland’s economy was estimated to have grown by 2.9% last year, according to the country’s StatOffice. That performance trounces Europe’s single currency area, also known as the eurozone, by more than threefold; it eked out a mere 0.7% over the same period.
Poland’s growth also overtook the U.S., which grew a robust 2.5% in the 12 months through December.
“The last year or two has seen a boom, and it’s getting publicity,” says Mateusz Urban, a senior economist at Oxford Economics in Warsaw, Poland, told FOX Business. “There really is a European tiger right at Germany’s door.”
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Consumers walk by a shopping center in Warsaw, the capital of Poland, July 4, 2024. (Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto via Getty Images / Getty Images)
This isn’t a one-off event. By 2024, Poland’s economy had grown to 11 times as big as in 1986. That considerably outpaces the U.S., which grew its economy to be six times as big over the same period, according to data from Trading Economics.
Urban says a big part of Poland’s fast growth involved unlocking human capital after the collapse of the Soviet Union. During the many decades of USSR rule, the government devoted a lot of effort to educating people in math, science and engineering, and the ongoing impact of those universities and schools is still much appreciated.
“These kinds of institutions have a long-lasting legacy,” Urban said. “After 1989, Poland inherited quite a well-organized system that managed to produce a good number of specialists in mechanical engineering and information technology.”
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That focus on science, tech, engineering and math helped the country build an impressive tech sector estimated to be worth $32 billion, or 4.5% of the economy this year, according to the Mordor Intelligence research company.
Polish workers are also “very hardworking, with high standards, and cheaper to employ than people in the United Kingdom,” Elias Haddad, a senior markets strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman in London, told FOX Business.
Another factor Poland is benefiting from is the appointment of EU veteran Donald Tusk as prime minister in December 2023. Previous to him, the Polish Law and Justice Party, led by Mateusz Jakub Morawiecki, had been sanctioned by the European Commission [EC] due to the belief that Poland’s judiciary was not independent of the government.
“The party were not abiding by some of the EU rules,” Haddad says.
The white and red national flag of Poland and the flag of the European Union in Brandenburg. (Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images / Getty Images)
The result was the EC held back EU funds meant to help Poland. But now with Tusk firmly in the hot seat, EU money should all be released, giving the economy yet another boost.
While the country is growing fast, it is also on the front line of NATO, the military alliance founded after WWII, bordering Ukraine. The country is expected to spend 4.7% of its GDP on defense this year, which is a larger percentage than any other NATO member, and it led the way in 2024 as well.
“We are aware that Germany won’t be able to rescue Poland,” Urban says. “That’s why the government is pushing spending to near 5% of GDP.”
For decades, Germany failed to reach its NATO commitment of spending at least 2% of GDP on defense, according to the World Bank. In 2024, it reached 2.1%.
While Poland has responded positively to the Ukraine-Russia war during that time, it has also taken on a burden of more than 7 million refugees from Ukraine.
“Since the war, we became an attractive place for immigration and refugees,” Marcin Klucznik, a senior advisor for the world economy team at the Polish Economic Institute, told FOX Business.
A man wears a “Make Poland Great Again” cap while attending the Independence March celebrating the 106th anniversary of Poland regaining independence in Warsaw, Poland Nov. 11, 2024. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images / Getty Images)
However, that massive influx has led to discussions of who Poland wants to attract to its country, Klucznik says. Last month Rafał Trzaskowski, a candidate for Poland’s presidency, requested the government stop paying so-called child benefit subsidies to Ukrainians with children but who aren’t officially working. He has stated that only those working and paying their taxes should get aid from the state.
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Klucznik said the country is conservative and cautious with its immigration policy.
“We are aware of some of the mistakes made by other European countries such as Germany, France and the U.K., and we want to avoid some of that,” he said.
In particular, those three large countries have failed to get many immigrants to integrate fully into the local culture.
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Brian Steorts, a combat veteran who founded Flags of Valor in 2015, said his flag-making business believes in the “American supply chain, the American worker and the American spirit.”
For Flags of Valor – a veteran-owned and operated business that has shipped more than 96,000 flags to doorsteps nationwide – the phrase “made in America” lies at the foundation of everything it stands for.
“For over 10 years, we’ve been saying the same thing – we build American products, on American wood, with American tools, made by American hands,” Flags of Valor founder and military veteran Brian Steorts told FOX Business. “And we do it while giving back to the causes that matter – supporting veterans, educating youth, and honoring service and sacrifice at every step.”
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Founded in Virginia in 2015, Flags of Valor is known for its handcrafted, wooden U.S. flags, as well as military and first responder flags. The business currently has 10 employees, the majority of whom are veterans and military spouses.
Flags of Valor currently has 10 employees, the majority of whom are veterans and military spouses. (Flags of Valor)
Each material used by the Flags of Valor team – from the woodworking tools to the tape for the shipping boxes – is sourced from American companies, according to Steorts.
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“We believe that’s the only way it should be done,” Steorts said.
Steorts, a combat veteran who was deployed nine times, served in the U.S. Army as a paratrooper and later as an Air Force special operations pilot.
In 2013, he got into woodworking after returning from one of his deployments injured and “mentally and physically” broken, he said. During that same time period, Steorts also lost four friends in combat and his sister to mental health struggles.
Founded in Winchester, Virginia, in 2015, Flags of Valor is known for its handcrafted, wooden U.S. flags, as well as military and first responder flags. (Flags of Valor)
“I wanted something patriotic on the wall of my house – something that meant something,” Steorts said. “I found therapy in [woodworking], and I found philanthropy in it by donating my first couple of flags to the widows of my buddies that passed, and I just knew I wanted to do more.”
While Flags of Valor’s best-selling products today are its wooden U.S. flags, the business also sells patriotic home and office decor, awards, memorial displays, corporate gifts, employee recognition pieces, Christmas ornaments, clothing and accessories, and more, Steorts said.
“One of the most important things we’re doing right now is building memorial flag cases – because our heroes deserve a final resting place for their flag that’s made by a veteran-owned American company, not mass-produced overseas,” he said.
Flags of Valor Founder Brian Steorts is pictured with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in 2017. (Flags of Valor)
In addition to employing veterans, Flags of Valor has also given back by donating $1.7 million to veteran-operated nonprofits.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company also launched a Kids Flag Building Kit, a hands-on activity to help educate children about the history and values the American flag represents. Each year, during the weeks of Veterans Day and Memorial Day, thousands of students across the nation use the kits to create their own American flags.
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“We believe in educating our youth and passing freedom on to the next generation,” Steorts said. “It’s more than a project – it’s about patriotism, education and preserving what matters most.”
FOX Business correspondent Jeff Flock discusses the record ground beef prices due to supply issues on ‘Varney & Co.’
High beef prices have been weighing on U.S. businesses and consumers.
They have forced some businesses to make tough decisions about how to handle the increased costs, and some are passing the costs on to customers.
Rob Passio, the owner of Lombardi’s Prime Meats in Philadelphia, told FOX Business correspondent Jeff Flock on “Varney & Co” that “there’s only so much you can absorb as far as the hit to your bottom line before you say to yourself you have to raise these prices.”
The butcher shop, Passio said, hasn’t seen its customers balk at higher prices “because they see it.”
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Organic ground beef Oct. 30, 2020, in Bavaria, Nuremberg (Daniel Karmann/picture alliance via Getty Images / Getty Images)
“They see the inflation. They see the pricing. You know, everything is up,” he told Flock.
Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation data measured by the consumer price index (CPI) showed prices for beef and veal were up 2.4% month-over-month and 7.6% year-over-year in February.
The overall CPI posted a 0.2% increase month-over-month and a 2.8% jump year-over-year.
Courtney Schmidt, sector manager at Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute, told FOX Business last month that high beef prices were driven by tighter U.S. beef production with consistent consumer demand.
The U.S. cattle herd is experiencing a down cycle, with cattle inventories at historically low levels in 2025, according to Schmidt.
Demand for beef has remained strong since the pandemic, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. (Kennedy Hayes/Fox News / Fox News)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported in late January that U.S. farms had 86.7 million head of cattle and calves. The count for beef cows specifically was 27.9 million, a decline of 1% compared to the same time last year, according to the USDA.
“I know they’re killing smaller cattle, so they’re trying, I guess, to kill them faster to create the supply that demand is needing,” Passio said.
Some big companies source beef from Canada and Mexico, Flock reported on “Varney & Co.”
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President Donald Trump imposed 25% import tariffs on goods entering the U.S. from those two countries March 4 and, more recently, introduced exemptions for Mexico and Canada on goods under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement until early April.
Such a levy on imported beef would “increase the price,” according to Passio, adding that consumers “are going to pay for it.”
“My philosophy is to sell it as low as you can to show a savings, a value to the customer. And hopefully you have more customers to generate your revenue,” the Lombardi Prime Meats owner told Flock.
Packages of beef are displayed for sale at a supermarket Jan. 12, 2023, in Foster City, Calif. (Liu Guanguan/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images / Getty Images)
In the U.S., ground beef averaged $5.63 per pound in February, while the per-pound price of boneless sirloin steak came in at $11.90, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Those average prices were 9.6% and 1.6% higher, respectively, than the same month in 2024.
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The USDA projected in a report released this month that U.S. beef production is poised to amount to 26.685 billion pounds this year.
Daniella Genovese contributed to this report.
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