Former President Donald Trump will meet privately with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida next week, a source with Mr. Orban’s team confirmed to The Epoch Times.
Over the past few years, the former president and Mr. Orban have frequently praised each other, and throughout the 2024 election campaign, the Republican front-runner has described the Hungarian leader as a critical figure in the worldwide conservative movement.
At a Jan. 20 New Hampshire rally, he referred to Mr. Orban as “a great man” and a “great leader” in Europe.
“The wonderful people of Hungary are lucky to have him!”
Mr. Orban, who served as prime minister from 1998 to 2002 and then returned to the position in 2010, has shared the same level of admiration.
In May 2023, the Hungarian conservative spoke to Republicans and European allies at the second annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Coalition (CPAC) Europe in Budapest, Hungary. During his prepared remarks, Mr. Orban asserted there wouldn’t be a military conflict in Eastern Europe if President Trump were in office.
“I’m sure if President Trump would be the president, there would be no war in Ukraine and Europe,” Mr. Orban said. “Come back, Mr. President. Make America great again and bring us peace.”
The prime minister decried liberalism as a “virus,” slammed “woke culture,” and rejected the “LGBTQ lobby.”
“Hungary is actually an incubator where experiments are done on the future of conservative policies. Hungary is the place where we didn’t just talk about defeating the progressives and liberals and causing a conservative Christian political turn, but we actually did it,” Mr. Orban said.
This past spring, he urged the GOP candidate to “keep on fighting” following the first set of charges filed against the billionaire real estate mogul.
Their last face-to-face meeting was in 2022 at President Trump’s New Jersey golf club.
Criticisms Over Ukraine
Mr. Orban has faced a flood of criticism over many of his positions.Critics have complained about his government behaving in an authoritarian manner by clamping down on the free press, migration, political dissent, and LGBTQ people.
The Hungarian leader’s frequent criticisms of Ukraine have captured the most attention and condemnation from Western governments and media. Mr. Orban has acknowledged that Kyiv can’t win the war and that allies should pursue an immediate ceasefire after negotiations.
In December 2023, he warned that his government, led by the Fidesz party, will have many opportunities to halt Ukraine’s process of joining the European Union.
Speaking with Hungarian state radio, the prime minister said that he would “not hesitate for a moment if the financial and economic consequences of this bad decision will be paid by the Hungarians.”
Mr. Orban also asserted that the EU was attempting to prolong the war, noting that giving more funding to Ukraine was “an immediate violation of [Hungary’s] interests.”
“The situation in Ukraine is bad, so no more money should be sent to the war,” he said. “The war should be stopped, and there should be a cease-fire and peace talks. Instead, now they want to give money to keep the war going.”
A chorus of U.S. officials has suggested that Mr. Orban “embraces” Russian President Vladimir Putin and disregards Hungary’s NATO allies.
“That disregard is evident when the [Hungarian] prime minister embraces Putin, when his government threatens to hold up crucially needed aid to its neighbor, Ukraine, while Ukrainian men, women, and children are murdered by war criminals,” said David Pressman, U.S. Ambassador to Hungary, during a December 2023 American Chamber of Commerce event in Budapest.
Despite months of blocking membership, Hungary’s parliament voted on Feb. 26 to ratify Sweden’s bid to join NATO. The historically neutral Scandinavian country applied to join the military alliance nearly two years ago.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson called the ratification a “historic day” and a “big step” after two centuries of neutrality.
