No bonus for boots - yet

Speaking at a meeting organized by the American Chamber of Commerce in Poland, Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said: "America has no better friend in Europe than Poland. Our commercial relationship is one of the brightest spots within transatlantic commerce."

In his speech, he focused on deals in the aviation industry: "Poland's recent order for 48 fighter jets is still Central Europe's largest defence contract with the US and Poland's recent order for Boeing's 787 shows the Polish government's deep commitment to basing commercial decisions on merit while insulating them from political pressures."

When asked what Poland could expect in exchange for its 'boots on the ground' in Iraq, Gutierrez was non-committal: "One way that I would suggest that it can be leveraged a little bit more is by creating an environment that welcomes more investment. Poland has a very good reputation in the US because of its partnership with the US. Continue to work on making [the business environment] clear and predictable and the amount of money and jobs that can be attracted from the US will surprise everyone."

The US secretary praised Poland's efforts in the area of piracy and copyright. "Intellectual property right violations are one of the most significant economic issues around the world today. Poland has made some very aggressive efforts to crackdown on sales of counterfeit and pirated products," he said.

He also claimed that sluggish economic growth in the EU was hurting the US and Poland.

"America needs a prosperous EU in order to be successful," he said. "We need to keep building towards a barrier free transatlantic marketplace. Slow economic growth in the EU over the past few years has hurt the US and it has hurt Poland and because of the size of the EU it has hurt the world economy. It's in out mutual interest for Europe to have a dynamic and growing regional economy with rising demand for goods and services."