Hungary’s Viktor Orbán Endorses Trump for President

Orbán, a staunch nationalist, endorsed Trump in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. (Flickr)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán voiced his support for President Donald Trump in an interview on state radio September 11. “What the president represents is good for Central Europe, which is why we are rooting—at least me, personally—for him to win the election,” Orbán said.

He continued his endorsement of Trump’s reelection campaign in an essay published in Magyar Nemzet, a major Hungarian newspaper, on September 21. 

“We root for Donald Trump’s victory, because we know well [that] American Democratic governments’ diplomacy [is] built on moral imperialism. We have been forced to sample it before, we did not like it, we do not want seconds,” he wrote. 

This is not the first time Orbán has publicly supported Trump. He was the first European national leader to praise Trump’s initial presidential campaign in 2016. In his visit to the U.S. in 2019, Orbán announced his intentions of strengthening the Hungary-U.S. alliance to “stand together with the United States on fighting against illegal migration, on terrorism, and to protect and help the Christian communities all around the world.”

Notably, Trump extended the first presidential invitation for Orbán to visit the White House since the start of Orbán’s term as prime minister in 2010.

Like Trump, Orbán has his fair share of controversies. The prime minister staunchly advocates for anti-immigration policies, once referring to Syrian refugees as “Muslim invaders.” While running for his third term as the leader of Hungary’s right-wing Fidesz political party, Orbán argued that the center-right European People’s Party was “turning left, in a liberal direction and… toward a Europe of immigrants.”

Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, the Hungarian government granted Orbán sweeping powers that would allow him an increasing amount of control over the country to combat outbreak in Hungary. These powers include permitting Orbán to rule by decree indefinitely, meaning he can enact laws quicker and virtually unchallenged. The law would also punish those who spread misinformation or intentionally incite fear relating to the pandemic.

Critics fear that such repressive measures will last even after the pandemic ends and that Orbán has taken advantage of Hungary’s state of emergency to gain power. Journalist Viktória Serdult from HVG, an independent Hungarian publication, tweeted, “Of course, some decrees introduced by PM Viktor Orbán will be easily kept as laws even after the state of emergency. The biggest question is whether ‘fearmongering and spread of misinformation’ will still be punishable by up to 5 years imprisonment.”

Freedom House, a U.S.-based non-profit NGO that researches political freedom, published a groundbreaking report in May declaring that Hungary is no longer a democracy partly due to Orbán’s attacks on the country’s democratic institutions. The authors wrote that “Hungary’s decline has been the most precipitous [they have] ever tracked.”

Despite his controversies, Orbán has also received continued endorsements from Trump. When the prime minister visited the White House last May, Trump stated, “Viktor Orbán has done a tremendous job in so many different ways. Highly respected. Respected all over Europe.  Probably, like me, a little bit controversial, but that’s okay.”