Trump will meet with Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister at Mar-a-Lago
Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister, will be visiting Donald Trump at his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago on Friday. He will not meet with President Biden on his trip to the United States to explore potential U.S. Foreign Policy.
The New York Times reported on the visit for the first time last week.
The Guardian reported that Orban had not received an invitation from the White House to visit the U.S. The Hungarian PM is expected to participate in a panel with the head of the Heritage Foundation, which is a conservative think-tank on Thursday before visiting Trump’s West Palm Beach Estate.
Orban has been in Hungary’s government since 2010. Foreign observers such as the U.S. State Department have criticized him for pushing what he describes as an “illiberal democracy”. He has been accused of a system becoming more autocratic. They claim he has rolled back minority rights, taken control of the judiciary and media, and manipulated Hungary’s electoral system to remain in power.
A Trump campaign spokesperson addressed the criticisms of Orban’s trip in a statement on Thursday.
Vladimir Putin only endorsed one candidate: Crooked Joe Biden. According to the spokesman, Putin fears that a Biden presidency will make America weaker on the world stage and would compromise our position.
Trump shakes hands with Orban outside the White House. Viktor Orban, Hungary’s Prime Minister, shakes hands in the West Wing, Washington, D.C., on May 13, 2019.
Mike Gonzalez, senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation asked in a 2023 op-ed, “Why does Biden’s Administration fund agitation towards Hungary, a NATO ally with a pro-American population? He said “Hungary’s government supports Western values, but White House liberals find it irritating because of its strategic location at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. ”
Orban was lauded by conservative American commentators because of his opposition to mass migration policies in the European Union and commitment to border safety. BBC said that Orban exempted women with four children from paying income tax for the rest of their lives.
Orban and Trump have been longtime friends. Trump has praised Orban’s right-wing populist politics.
Trump meets Orban in the Oval Office. Former president Donald Trump, at the right, speaks to reporters during a meeting with Hungarian premier Viktor Orban in the Oval Office of Washington, D.C. on May 13, 2019.
Orban sent Trump a message in April 2023, when charges were filed against him in the first of four criminal cases. Orban encouraged Trump to keep fighting. Trump said in 2022 that he was giving Orban “complete and unconditional support” to his reelection campaign that year.
Orban attends an event in Budapest. Hungarian Premier Viktor Orban, (right), attended the Economic Season opening on Monday.
Katalin Ceh, of Hungary’s Momentum party opposition, told The Guardian: If Trump were the China-hawk, he wouldn’t have let Orban get away with cozying up to Beijing.
She claimed that Trump is more interested in cozying up to authoritarians and that they may be exchanging notes on how to undermine NATO to Putin’s advantage.
Sweden joined NATO officially on Thursday. This ended decades of neutrality following World War II and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Orban stated earlier this year that he welcomed Trump’s return to the White House to “make peace” in the Eastern half of Europe.
David Pressman, the U.S. In an interview with The Guardian earlier this year, the U.S. Ambassador to Budapest suggested that the Hungarian government was following a fantasy foreign policy “.
