Viktor Orbán vs. America First

‘L et me tell you about world leaders,” Donald Trump said at last week’s debate. “Viktor Orbán — one of the most respected men — they call him a strongman. He’s a tough person. Smart.” Trump is right — the Hungarian prime minister is both tough and smart. But Orbán is also turning Hungary into China’s economic backdoor into Europe. What’s more, while Trump has called on Europe to contribute more to the defense of Ukraine, Orbán is working hard to prevent Europe from picking up its share of the costs. If Trump wants to put America First, Orbán is the last person he should be learning from.

Orbán has built a following among American conservatives with high-profile efforts to own the libs, as some Republicans might say. When 161,000 migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq abruptly entered Hungary illegally in 2015, Orbán ignored howls of opposition from the EU and built a fence on his southern border. When Orbán champions his “war on woke progressives” and praises the traditional family, he sounds a lot like an American-style conservative.

Orbán has also made a personal effort to win over Trump. During the Republican primary, Orbán gave his early endorsement to Trump — a rare move for a foreign leader. After attending this summer’s NATO Summit in Washington, he made a personal visit to Mar-a-Lago for a private sit-down with Trump. Orbán’s positive attention and support have clearly made an impression — while distracting many conservatives from his growing intimacy with Beijing.

Last year, Beijing lavished Hungary with 44 percent of its total foreign direct investment in Europe — “more than Germany, France and the United Kingdom combined.” When Chinese president Xi Jinping visited Hungary in May 2024, he called the relationship between the two countries as “mellow and rich as Tokaji wine” — a celebrated Hungarian vintage — and signed an agreement to harden Beijing’s “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership” with Budapest.

That partnership is long in the making. Orbán previously rejected the Trump administration’s warnings about opening his country to China’s state-controlled technology behemoth, Huawei. Instead, Hungary’s reliance on Huawei for digital technology has only grown, with the company building a large R&D center in Budapest. China likewise financed the construction of the $2.1 billion Budapest–Belgrade railway, an expansive infrastructure project, and is establishing major electric-vehicle-manufacturing operations in Hungary. Exploiting this opening, China has now offered its assistance and cooperation in matters of Hungarian public security and law enforcement.

Orbán has also cultivated close relations with Vladimir Putin, which Trump does not automatically presume to be a liability. Yet Orbán is helping Putin undermine Trump’s signature policies. As president, Trump’s fight to prevent Germany from completing Russia’s multi-billion-dollar Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline became a keystone of his European policy — and he briefly succeeded. “I ended the Nord Stream 2 pipeline,” Trump proclaimed at the debate. “And Biden put it back on Day One.”

Unfortunately for Trump and U.S. companies, Orbán has made Hungary dangerously dependent on Russian energy — to the exclusion of competing American gas from Europe’s LNG ports. When Hungary decided to build a new nuclear reactor, Orbán refused to let Westinghouse (and other international firms) contend for the job. Instead, he granted a no-bid contract to Russia. Hungarians will be paying off a $9 billion debt to Russia for decades as a result. All the while, they must rely on Moscow to keep their lights on.

And then there’s Ukraine. At campaign rallies, Trump often calls on Europe to provide more military assistance to Ukraine. But it was Orbán who routinely blocked, delayed, or weakened EU and NATO efforts to do so. Unsurprisingly, he has also parroted the Kremlin’s talking points about the war in Ukraine, blaming the conflict on its victims. Trump wants peace in Ukraine, but Orbán’s idea of peace is a Russian victory.

Orbán’s long-term goal appears clear — he wants to take advantage of the global instability caused by U.S. weakness, leveraging his partnerships with China and Russia in a way that would benefit him in a post-American world. While courting Trump with one hand, Orbán is betting on American decline with the other. He does not hide this fact. He declared in May that countries should embrace a multipolar world where America is not a leader, and the pillar of that new world order is China.

Whatever one’s view of the ideal role for America in the world, this is not the kind of talk that one would expect from an enduring friend of the U.S. Conservatives should take note before cheering Orbán. Our own national interests depend on it.

Peter Doran is a senior research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Ivana Stradner is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.