President-elect Donald Trump has big foreign policy ambitions for his second term. He will need allies to help him succeed.
But while Trump prizes loyalty among his subordinates, it’s strange that he seems happy to be a puppet for a thinly-veiled American enemy. That person is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Although NATO and European Union member-state Hungary might be an American ally on paper, Orban has stated that he views the United States as one of his top three foes. In turn, Orban has centered his foreign policy on the deferential service of China and Russia.
Following Trump’s election landslide, Orban wants to waste no time in subjugating Trump to his agenda. As Orban put it on Wednesday, “Mar-a-Lago calling. Just had my first phone conversation with President Trump since the elections. We have big plans for the future!”
Orban might be skilled at whispering sweet praise into Trump’s ear, but you can bet that those “big plans” won’t involve Trump’s or America’s better interests.
Because while some American conservatives are incapable of figuring it out, Orban is no friend of the U.S. Indeed, Orban clearly thinks his American conservative supporters are idiots. Addressing a 2022 CPAC gathering, Orban referenced the defeat of Soviet Communism but then added, “We have to defeat them again.” He clearly believes that American conservatives do not realize that the Chinese Communist Party is, in fact, a Communist Party. After all, Orban is an on-retainer political prostitute for America’s most capable adversary, Communist China. Don’t take my word for it; take Orban’s.
Hosting Xi in May, Orban praised China as the nation that “determines the course of world economic and world political processes.” The prime minister added that he has “always maintained friendly relations with China … we have always believed in the principle of One China [“One China” meaning no recognition of Taiwan], we have always stood on the basis of mutual respect, we have always regarded China as a friendly country.” Orban’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, further explains, “We don’t see China as a risk, but as a country with which cooperation offers us immense opportunities.”
This is not idle rhetoric. Orban has unapologetically welcomed Chinese intelligence-gathering tools into Hungary’s 5G network, he has sacrificed Hungary’s sovereignty in order to feed at Xi’s economic and patronage trough, and he has systematically opposed European Union actions to confront Chinese espionage, Chinese dumping into the EU market, and restrictions on Chinese companies supporting Russia’s war on Ukraine. Put another way, Orban is about as much of a nationalist strongman as Vice President Kamala Harris is an election winner.
As he seeks artful masterpieces of diplomatic deals, Trump should thus ask himself a key question. Namely, does Orban sound like a leader who can help Trump successfully address Chinese intellectual property theft, its aggression against U.S. allies such as Japan and the Philippines, and its dumping into the U.S. market via Mexico? Or how about negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine?
Whatever the complications involved, Trump’s desire to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine on terms that Ukraine can accept is positive. But getting to that finish line is going to take more than desire. It will require an ability to stare down Vladimir Putin when, at the start of negotiations, the Russian leader demands maximal results without regard for Ukraine’s sovereignty. Is Orban the leader to help Trump in this pursuit?
I think not.
Orban’s solution to end the war in Ukraine is quite simple. He wants to cut off Ukraine’s figurative arms by immediately ending Western arms supplies to the invaded democracy. At the same time, he wants to reduce Western sanctions and other points of leverage on Putin. It would be one thing if Orban’s supplication to Putin had earned him an ability to serve as a forceful interlocutor between Trump and Putin, but that’s just not the case.
Not only does Putin not respect Orban, he clearly thinks he’s little more than a useful idiot. Consider that the last time Orban traveled to Moscow with a public purpose of talking Ukraine peace, Putin promptly lobbed a missile into a Ukrainian children’s hospital. Just as Russian attacks on Syrian hospitals seek to destroy the resolve of anti-Assad forces by literally killing their own reasons to live (their families), this Russian strike was designed with two other messages. First, the message to Ukraine that it can either surrender or be annihilated. Second, the message to Orban that his Moscow influence relationship goes only one way.
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Trump’s first term in office showed his appetite for unconventional and sometimes highly successful negotiations, as with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. But if he wants to build on that legacy over the next four years, Orban isn’t going to cut it as a useful partner.
In the end, Orban isn’t a nationalist strongman; he’s only a rather pathetic puppet for the nationalist strongmen who lead America’s adversaries.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
