Donald Trump Jr. is scheduled to travel to Romania on April 28, before the nation’s controversial delayed presidential election.
Despite the politically charged atmosphere, the reasons for Trump’s visit are unconnected with the election. According to G4 Media, it is part of a broader business tour of Eastern European capitals, under Trump Business Vision 2025. A person familiar with the matter told Axios he has no public or private meetings with Romanian politicians planned.
The speaking tour, organized by Salem Media, will also take him to Sofia, Bulgaria; Budapest, Hungary; Bratislava, Slovakia; Belgrade, Serbia; and Prague.
The trip comes just days before the May 4 election. Trump was outspokenly critical of a December 2024 court decision that overturned the first election results when the right-wing populist Calin Georgescu came in first place. The decision made Romania the first country in history to overturn election results over allegations of online foreign interference.
“Wow, look at what’s happening in Romania!” Trump said on Dec. 6. “The Constitutional Court just canceled the first round of their presidential election. Another Soros/Marxist attempt at rigging the outcome & denying the will of the people. She’s going to lose, and they know it.”
He did not comment on the major development last month, when Romania’s Constitutional Court barred Georgescu from running again. The court cited the December decision of the lower court that speculated that his victory could have been influenced by a foreign power.
A declassified report from Romania’s security agency alleged that paid influencers boosted Georgescu’s account in the lead-up to the election and that some accounts supporting him showed bot-like behavior. The scale of the effort led to speculation that a foreign actor was behind it. While not explicitly stated, analysts believe the report implies Russia’s involvement.
The agency didn’t find any concrete evidence connecting Georgescu to a foreign intelligence scheme but speculated that he could be tied to one. The “flimsy” nature of the argument drew outrage from right-wing figures across Europe and the United States, including Vice President JD Vance, who denounced the decision in a February speech in Munich.
“Now we’re at the point, of course, that the situation has gotten so bad that, this December, Romania straight up canceled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbors,” he said.
“Now, as I understand it, the argument was that Russian disinformation had infected the Romanian elections, but I’d ask my European friends to have some perspective,” he added. “You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage even. But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.”
Georgescu was polling at over 40% when he was banned, making him by far the most popular candidate. Most of his support has shifted to the right-wing George Simon, a more centrist candidate with pro-European Union views. Simon is polling at 30%, followed by Bucharest mayor Nicușor Dan at 26% and three-way coalition government candidate Crin Antonescu at 18%.
Georgescu, 62, came in first place in the first round of elections in November 2024 with 22.9% of the vote. His rise blindsided the entire Romanian political scene, especially as he had not participated in any debates, did not register significantly in opinion polls, and did not belong to a party, something almost unheard of in Romanian politics.
His nationalist and pro-Russian views drew the ire of the political establishment, who have kept Romania’s government largely centrist in recent decades.
ROMANIAN ELECTIONS BUREAU BANS CALIN GEORGESCU FROM RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT AGAIN
Instead, Georgescu ran an almost exclusively online campaign, centering on TikTok edits of himself. The edits were usually clips of his speeches interwoven with him riding on horseback, swimming in icy mountain waters, or fighting in judo sessions, among other activities. His account quickly went viral, generating 3.8 million likes and 298,000 followers, while his videos routinely received millions of views, Politico reported.
Romania has the largest share of per capita TikTok users in Europe, with roughly half of its 19 million people being users of the app, according to data from the World Population Review.