“Call back Trump,” Orban declared. “Trump is the man who can save the Western world.”
A couple days later, the former president returned the favor on social media. “Viktor Orban is a great leader and man,” Trump wrote. “The wonderful people of Hungary are lucky to have him!”
The bonhomie between the two is just the tip of the spear of a broader ideological alliance. In recent years, Orban has emerged as a kind of lodestar for the right-wing movement in the United States. In power since 2010, his enduring success is seen by some Republicans as a template for how an emboldened nationalist project can win and keep winning. Orban’s appearances at meetings of the Conservative Political Action Conference, an influential organ of the U.S. right that has staged events in Hungary, have been rockstar-like affairs, with the illiberal Hungarian leader bashing the “globalist ruling class” and “liberal” media to raucous applause.
At a Wednesday night debate, Trump’s main Republican challengers may find themselves singing from a song sheet already penned by Orban and his ruling Fidesz party: They may decry the infiltration of “gender ideology” into public education, rage against the supposed “open border” policies of a feckless liberal establishment, grouse over the influence of Jewish American financier George Soros, and bemoan the seemingly endless flow of arms to support Ukraine’s resistance to Russian invasion.
It’s on that latter note where a particularly conspicuous convergence is taking place. Among hard-line Republicans in Congress, as well as a preponderance of GOP voters, there’s growing opposition for further funding of the Ukrainian war effort. A majority of GOP lawmakers have so far voted for Ukraine spending, but the politics of the moment suggest that that critical mass of support may not last much longer — a looming possibility that is being watched closely by the Kremlin. Last week, Trump welcomed remarks made by Russian President Vladimir Putin, where the Russian leader enthused about Trump’s proposals to end the conflict “within several days.”
To that end, they have a fellow traveler in Orban, an outlier among leaders in the European Union. He has fostered warm ties with Putin, a fellow illiberal nationalist. Orban has balked at sending military aid to neighboring Ukraine and keeps pushing for negotiations and an immediate cessation of hostilities. Officials in the West and Kyiv also want peace, but in a context where the Ukrainians can better set the terms and preserve their nation’s territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s landgrab.
In a speech to his country’s parliament Monday, Orban said he was in no rush to ratify Sweden’s accession to NATO. He signaled his desire for the war to end, no matter the concessions Ukraine would have to make. “Diplomats must take control back from the hands of the soldiers, otherwise it will be in vain for women to wait for their sons and fathers and husbands to come home,” Orban said.
A few days prior, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. He told reporters that Western politicians should follow suit and that the Russians are “ready for peace talks.” That’s an assessment not shared by U.S. and European officials; on Tuesday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said his government was prepared for the war to carry on until 2025.
The web of ties between Moscow and Budapest is complex. Orban’s government has inked a number of murky deals with Russia over the years, including major energy contracts and a deal to expand a key nuclear power facility. It’s still largely reliant on Russian gas imports. In 2019, Orban’s government helped the Russia-controlled International Investment Bank move its headquarters from Moscow to Budapest, a development that critics warned gave the Kremlin a spying platform in the middle of European Union. (Hungary withdrew its representatives from the bank earlier this year.)
Hungary has repeatedly irked the government in Kyiv with its rhetoric and actions. Last year, Orban’s government blocked E.U. sanctions targeting Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, a key Putin ally and a vocal propagandist for the Russian invasion. Earlier this year, Kirill awarded Orban the Order of Glory and Honor, in recognition for the Hungarian prime minister’s commitment to Christian values.
To his American admirers, Orban’s avowedly illiberal politics and contempt for the Western establishment must be emulated. A host of Republicans find inspiration in his cowing of critical media, grandstanding over migration, stuffing of the courts, and embrace of aggressive subsidies to boost birthrates. Orban’s clique, in turn, hopes for a far-right restoration in the White House, which would give new momentum to their agenda.
“They really hope that Trump or a Trumpist president comes back,” Zsuzsanna Szelenyi, director of the Democracy Institute Leadership Academy for Central and Eastern Europe, told the New Republic’s Emily Tamkin. “It’s important for them. They are preparing for the global radical right’s victory.”
A Trump return would also help obscure the real issues that concern U.S. and other European diplomats about Hungary — namely, its coddling of Russia and the shadowy interests that underlie Orban’s special relationship with Putin.
“The conflict between Washington and Budapest over the past several years is about Hungarian corruption, especially corruption in the ruling Fidesz party, and Hungary’s deep ties to other autocracies,” the Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum wrote. “But Orban doesn’t want his voters to pay attention to his corrupt links or his autocratic friendships, and he doesn’t want Americans or Europeans to know about them either. And so he hides them behind the veil of a culture war.”
