Vance, Attempting To Shore Up Orban’s Prospects, Delivers a Speech on American Friendship at Budapest

Vice President Vance spoke at Budapest alongside Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the Hungarian-American Friendship Day rally, just days before the country goes to the voting booth to decide if Mr. Orban will secure a fifth term. Hungarian polls show opposition leader Peter Magyar’s Tisza party with a double-digit lead over Mr. Orban’s Fidesz.With military action in Iran, battles with Democrats over funding the Department of Homeland Security, and midterm elections looming, why did Mr. Vance fly to a Central European country of just 10 million people to boost the prospects of its leader?Friends are hard to come by in Europe these days, and Mr. Orban has proven a reliable friend of the Trump administration. In his speech, Mr. Vance made clear what “friendship” with America means — a shared commitment to national sovereignty, freedom, and the preservation of western civilization rooted in traditional values. By that measure, Mr. Orban’s Hungary is a friend, and Ursula Von Der Leyen’s European Union is not.Western Europe’s refusal to assist the United States in its actions against Iran have shifted it, in Mr. Trump’s eyes, closer to the EU end of the friendship scale. Tensions were already evident last year at the Munich Security Conference where Mr. Vance chided America’s longtime partners for betraying a sacred civilizational bond and risking a potential break-up.This year’s Budapest rally speech felt like an attempt to rekindle the fire between a couple before one partner makes the wrong choice and runs off with the yoga instructor. Mr. Magyar, who emerged from the Fidesz party, is that wrong choice, according to Mr. Vance. Though he shares many of Mr. Orban’s views on immigration and traditional values and thereby ticks many of the American “friendship boxes,” Mr. Magyar breaks from Mr. Orban in seeking closer cooperation with the EU. For President Trump, this is unwelcome, unfriendly behavior.Mr. Trump called into Mr. Vance’s cellphone during the rally to commend Mr. Orban to Hungarian voters. Clearly, an Orban victory, in other words an EU defeat, is a priority for the Trump administration.The president appears to enjoy Hungary’s role as spoiler for the EU agenda. Just last month, Mr. Orban used his veto to block a €90 billion loan package for Ukraine until Kyiv restores the Druzhba pipeline which supplied Russian oil to Hungary and Central Europe. “No oil, no money,” Mr. Orban said, accusing Ukraine of delaying repairs. The U.S. Ambassador to the EU, Andrew Puzder, declined to criticize Mr. Orban’s decision. On migration, Hungary serves as a model of American-style national sovereignty and civilizational pride, pushing back against liberal open-border policies enforced by centralized EU regulation and control. Mr. Orban rejected the EU’s Migration and Asylum Pact, refusing to accept migrants under the solidarity mechanism. Illegal crossings are near zero. Not only can Mr. Trump relate to Mr. Orban’s policies, he hopes other European countries will see them as templates for their own successes.Mr. Orban also aligns with the Trump Administration on energy. He has derided Brussel’s green agenda and called its climate plans a “utopian fantasy”. In November 2025 Hungary announced it would take the EU to the European Court of Justice over plans to phase out Russian energy imports, upon which Hungary heavily relies.The Trump administration sent Mr. Vance to Hungary to remind its voters that it has a friend in the United States with Mr. Orban in the Prime Minister’s seat. The vice president did a great job of painting a sentimental picture of shared values and fraternity in his speech, but ultimately American-Hungarian friendship is strategic. It is about countering an unfriendly EU with a different vision of the West’s future.

Vance, Attempting To Shore Up Orban’s Prospects, Delivers a Speech on American Friendship at Budapest

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