Vance Headed to Hungary in Display of Trump’s Support for Prime Minister Orban in Upcoming Election

Vice President Vance is hitting the campaign trail on behalf of one of President Trump’s favorite foreign leaders, the prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban. With Mr. Orban’s future on the line after 16 years of increasingly authoritarian rule, Mr. Vance is spending Tuesday and Wednesday in Budapest this week in the run-up to pivotal elections Sunday for the 199-member parliament, which elects the prime minister.Mr. Vance, accompanied by America’s second lady, Usha, hasn’t talked about the trip, but Mr. Trump has left scant doubt where he and the vice president stand. “I proudly supported Viktor in the 2022 elections,” the website Euronews quoted Mr. Trump as saying in February, “and it is an honor to do so again.”For Mr. Trump, the election isn’t just a test of the far-rightist Mr. Orban’s grip on corruption and the economy, focal points of a campaign that his moderate-right challenger, Peter Magyar, believes can finally defeat Mr. Orban, whose party has won majorities in four previous elections. Much more importantly, from the vantage of Washington and America’s interests, is that Mr. Orban shares Mr. Trump’s doubts about the war in Ukraine and also the North Atlantic Treaty. Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Orban sees himself as a friend of President Putin.“NATO has no business in Ukraine” since Ukraine “is not a member of NATO,” he said in a news conference on TV. “My job is to keep it as it is.”Mr. Orban has hardened his position since Mr. Trump, when they met at the White House in November, pronounced him “a great leader.” Mr. Trump gave Mr. Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions on importing Russian oil, pumped into his landlocked nation through a pipeline system that goes through Belarus and Ukraine.Mr. Orban has capitalized on the war in Iran by accusing Ukraine’s president, Volodymir Zelensky, of cutting off the flow while Moscow negotiates to increase shipments to other countries deprived of oil by Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.The 45-year-old Mr. Magyar appears to have made substantial inroads on the huge majority that Mr. Orban, 62, scored in the last election four years ago. Mr. Orban “faces his strongest challenge yet,” says BBC. “Most opinion polls suggest he is heading for defeat.” He “could be voted out” in “one of the most consequential contests of 2026.”Mr. Orban is fighting back hard in a campaign tinged by charges and countercharges that have so far not exploded into violence. The independent Hungary News Agency reports that Mr. Orban “has alleged that Ukrainians threatened his family” and “released a video in which he spoke to his daughters on the phone, saying that threats had been made not only against him but also against his family.”An English-language website in Budapest, noting that Mr. Vance is “the highest-ranking American official to visit Hungary since President George W. Bush came to the city back in 2006,” reflects the excitement.The website Budappest.com says the visit “is widely seen as a show of American support for Orban.” It credits Politico with obtaining a briefing note stating that the visit “is meant to send ‘a clear signal of US commitment,’ underline shared values, and ensure that Hungary remains ‘a key democratic ally of the United States rather than an arena of great power competition.’”

Vance Headed to Hungary in Display of Trump’s Support for Prime Minister Orban in Upcoming Election

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