Under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the European nation of Hungary has become a de facto colony of Communist China.
This is not a debatable point.
Orban now allows Chinese police officers to patrol his country’s streets and physically search Hungarian parliamentarians. He has embraced China’s Huawei telecommunications/spy agency into the heart of his 5G networks. He has established massive Chinese-funded universities. He has welcomed massive Chinese electric vehicle plants that will help Beijing to avoid European dumping tariffs. He rejects Taiwan’s sovereignty and has accepted huge Chinese loans that risk a debt trap of epic proportions. Prodding the United States, Orban has declared that China “determines the course of world economic and world political processes.” His foreign minister has similarly observed, “We don’t see China as a risk, but as a country with which cooperation offers us immense opportunities.”
If this is nationalism, it is a nationalism of a very strange kind. Indeed, Orban’s submission to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which extends to allowing Russia’s intelligence services free rein in Hungary, is another feather in his actually-not-so-nationalist cap.
Regardless, supporting Orban certainly doesn’t serve American national interests. It’s strange then that President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are actively boosting Orban in advance of April 12 parliamentary elections. With polls showing Orban’s populist-right Fidesz trailing Peter Maygar’s Tisza party, the American support might prove priceless.
Trump endorsed Orban on social media last week, noting, “I was proud to ENDORSE Viktor for Re-Election in 2022, and am honored to do so again.” Visiting Hungary last week, Rubio then added, “We are entering this golden era of relations between our countries and not simply because of the alignment of our people. President Trump is deeply committed to your success because your success is our success.”
Again, Trump and Rubio cannot credibly claim that Orban’s reelection will serve U.S. interests.
China will manifestly be the beneficiary if Orban retains power. In contrast, U.S. foreign policy interests would be far better served by a Maygar victory. Like Orban, Maygar is a conservative. Unlike Orban, Maygar is both a Hungarian nationalist and a pro-American who wants to bolster relations with the West over China and Russia. A former senior Fidesz figure, Maygar left the party in 2024 in disgust at Orban and the party’s corruption, and over the government pardon of a man who covered up child sex abuse at a state-run orphanage.
That corruption and cover-up are the ugly reality behind the glossy veil of Orban’s carefully constructed “father of the nation” persona. It speaks to a leader devoid of integrity.
Consider Orban’s role as Communist China’s favored European pet. Orban uses Hungary’s NATO membership to resist efforts to increase attention on Chinese security threats. Orban similarly uses his European Union membership to block human rights action on China’s human rights abuses, its militarism against U.S. treaty allies in the Pacific, and tougher EU tariff action against Chinese trade dumping. Still, Orban plainly sees himself as the one pulling the strings in his U.S. relationship.
When Orban has directly criticized Trump on U.S. sanctions on Russian energy exports, for example, Trump allowed Orban to avoid those sanctions and keep slurping up Russian gas. In marked distinction with the Trump administration’s otherwise righteous sanctions forward approach toward other buyers of Russian energy, such as India, Rubio defended Orban’s Russian energy fetish as an example of Hungary, “pursuing its own national interests.”
The problem is that Hungary’s pursuit of its national interests here does not exist in a political vacuum.
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Hungary’s continued guzzling of Russian gas does an obvious disservice to U.S. interests. It reduces the economic pressure on Putin to negotiate a just peace agreement with Ukraine. It also boosts Vladimir Putin’s ability to threaten far better American allies, such as the Baltic States. Orban does all this even as Putin treats him like a useful idiot.
Trump and conservatives such as those at the Conservative Political Action Conference might delude themselves into the belief that Orban is America’s friend. In the end, such shallow wit earns them only Orban’s continued betrayal and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s salivating derision.