Biden’s envoy to Hungary lashes Orbán over Trump, Russia, China ties

A top U.S. diplomat slammed Viktor Orbán for the Hungarian leader’s embrace of Donald Trump in the American presidential election — and took him to task for cozying up to Russia and China.

“Prime Minister Orbán has made no secret of who he would like to win [the election],” U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman said Tuesday, two months after the longtime Hungarian leader met Trump at the latter’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Referring to Orbán’s party, Pressman said, “Fidesz continues to … stake its relationship with the United States on the outcome of one election in November. And if that election doesn’t go the way they hope, their strategy is to wait. In the words of one senior official, ‘there is no Plan B.'”

Pressman, an appointee by outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden, made the remarks as Trump continued to shower Orbán with praise on the campaign trail.

Trump, eager to show he’s not altogether unpopular on the other side of the pond, constantly cites the support he enjoys from Orbán, calling him just last week “one of the most respected men” and a “smart prime minister of Hungary.”

The feeling is mutual. Orbán told media outlets of Axel Springer, which owns POLITICO, last month that he believed Trump would win the election, adding: “I believe that will be good for the world politics.” Orbán called Trump “the man of peace.”

Pressman questioned that approach in his speech at the Budapest Forum, “I don’t think actions that risk reducing a security alliance between two great nations into a political alliance between two big personalities services any democratic, allied relationship, anywhere.

“The United States has alliances with countries, not personalities within them,” he added. “Hungary’s government has been signaling — and signaling loudly — distance from its allies, distance from Europe, and distance from the United States.”

Orbán, in a highly controversial move, lent diplomatic support in July to the otherwise isolated Russian President Vladimir Putin, visiting Moscow while his country held the Council of the EU’s rotating presidency. In the Kremlin, Orbán said he was “grateful” to Putin’s hospitality, putting pressure on Ukraine to consider negotiations.

Pressman criticized Orbán’s approach to the Western alliance, suggesting that it’s time to adjust the relationship with Hungary.

“Other democratic governments whose people have sworn to defend Hungary are subject to the Hungarian government’s consistent and enthusiastic disparagement. Yet Russia and China — two authoritarian states — seem exempt from it,” he said.

Hungary, a member of NATO, stood in the way for two years until it became the last ally to ratify Sweden’s bid to join the alliance.

It’s also secured an opt-out from NATO-led military support initiatives for Ukraine, using it as a precondition before — again — being one of the last countries to endorse former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte as the next NATO secretary-general.

“Hungary criticizes NATO from within the comfort of the NATO security umbrella, and Hungary criticizes the EU under subsidy of the EU’s economic umbrella,” Pressman said. “We [Hungary’s allies and partners] … have to recognize that what we used to dismiss with an eyeroll requires us to look at it directly, and respond to it unflinchingly.”