Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban waded deeper into US politics with a message of support for former President Donald Trump before his arraignment, underscoring his pro-Republican leanings and his chilly relations with the Biden administration.
(Bloomberg) — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban waded deeper into US politics with a message of support for former President Donald Trump before his arraignment, underscoring his pro-Republican leanings and his chilly relations with the Biden administration.
“Keep on fighting, Mr. President! We are with you,” Orban wrote on Twitter on Monday. Last week, Trump became the first former US president to be indicted. He will be arraigned in New York on Tuesday in connection with charges of hush money payments to a porn star during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The message was a highly unusual intervention from a head of government in US domestic affairs, especially from a European Union and NATO member whose leader frequently dismisses criticism of his efforts to consolidate power over major aspects of Hungarian society as foreign meddling.
But it was vintage Orban, the nationalist trailblazer who was the first foreign leader to endorse Trump back in the 2016 election. He also hosted Republicans last year at a Conservative Political Action Conference, where he shared a 12-point recipe on how to skirt the guardrails of democracy to impose illiberal regimes.
Orban’s more than decade-old campaign of strengthening his grip in Hungary and his cozy relationship with China and Russia — even after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last year — have sent ties with the US to a new low.
President Joe Biden’s administration snubbed Hungary by withholding an invitation to its democracy summit last week. It has also scrapped a key bilateral tax treaty that’s been in place since 1979.
Republican leaders have pledged to reinstate the tax treaty if they win the White House next year, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told US business leaders in Budapest on Monday, according to the state MTI news service.
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