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Viktor Orbán met former US president Donald Trump on Thursday, days after the Hungarian prime minister made a controversial visit to Moscow to see Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Orbán, the EU’s most pro-Russia leader and vocal supporter of Trump, travelled to Florida to meet the Republican candidate for November’s presidential election straight from a Nato leaders’ summit in Washington.
“We continued the peace mission in Mar-a-Lago,” Orbán’s spokesperson Zoltán Kovács posted on X, along with video footage showing the Hungarian leader greeting Trump at his Floridian resort. Trump, Kovács said, “has proved during his presidency that he is a man of peace. He will do it again!”
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said he had not been informed directly about the meeting but heard about it “indirectly”.
The Hungarian leader opposes western military aid to Ukraine and has called for immediate peace talks to end the conflict, even though Russia occupies large chunks of Ukraine, while Kyiv is opposed to negotiations. Orbán’s visit to Moscow last week violated EU rules, Brussels said on Wednesday.
The meeting with Trump is likely to further rile other EU leaders angry at Orbán breaching the bloc’s unified foreign policy positions. Orbán did not inform his allies of the planned meeting, two EU diplomats told the Financial Times.
Hungary took over the six-month rotating presidency of the EU council of ministers on July 1, a role that allows members of Orbán’s government to chair meetings.
Orbán has met Trump multiple times and is a frequent guest speaker at pro-Trump events, aligning his nationalist, anti-migration politics with the former president’s rhetoric. The Hungarian leader was last at Mar-a-Lago in March.
Balázs Orbán, the prime minister’s influential political director, said in a comment posted on X on Wednesday that he believed Trump “is the most pro-European position when it comes to defending ourselves: first and foremost, we are responsible for our own safety”.
Other European capitals are fearful of a potential second Trump presidency given the former US leader’s protectionist trade stance and his questioning of the US commitment to defend Nato allies if they are attacked, but Orbán has long spoken warmly of Trump’s election bid.
Orbán’s trip, first reported by Bloomberg, comes as other European leaders, ministers and officials in Washington for the Nato summit meet Trump-affiliated foreign policy officials such as Keith Kellogg, former chief of staff in Trump’s National Security Council.
Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz in Washington
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