Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday praised what he called the close personal ties between President Trump and Prime Minister Victor Orban of Hungary, offering further White House support for the authoritarian leader ahead of a closely contested election.
“That person-to-person connection that you’ve established with the president has made all the difference in the world in building this relationship,” Mr. Rubio told Mr. Orban at a news conference after the two leaders met at the prime minister’s office in the capital’s Carmelite Monastery.
“I can say to you with confidence that President Trump is deeply committed to your success,” he added, “because your success is our success, because this relationship we have here in Central Europe through you is so essential and vital for our national interests in the years to come.”
Mr. Orban has touted transforming Hungary into an “illiberal state.” He has spent many years working to weaken democracy in Hungary, and his strongman policies, especially on immigration and his closeness to Russia, have made him a figure that has galvanized conservative and hard-right movements in Europe and the United States.
Mr. Orban’s success in bringing the judiciary and media to heel has raised questions about the fairness of any election in Hungary. Nonetheless he faces an apparently tough challenge in national balloting in April.
His opponent, Peter Magyar, once a well-connected member of Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party, is running on an anti-corruption platform. He has also promised to mend relations with the European Union, something that has resonated with many Hungarians.
Mr. Orban appears to be counting on his ties to Mr. Trump to help boost his chances. Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Orban in a social media post on Feb. 5. Mr. Rubio arrived just after the start of the official campaign, further demonstrating the willingness of the Trump administration to insert itself into the domestic politics of other countries, whether it be Hungary, Brazil, Argentina or Japan.
At the news conference on Monday, Mr. Orban boasted of 17 new economic agreements with the U.S., including one on civil nuclear cooperation signed by Mr. Rubio. He said Russia would never have done its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 if Mr. Trump had been president then, and he offered Hungary as a venue for peace talks.
Mr. Orban has criticized European support of Ukraine in its war with Russia, drawing denunciations from Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Mr. Orban said on Monday that Ukraine had a vested interest in the outcome of the elections in April. “We must acknowledge this campaign in Hungary has an international dimension,” he said.
The visit to Budapest was Mr. Rubio’s last stop in a three-nation tour of Europe.
During the weekend, he led a U.S. delegation at the Munich Security Conference, where he struck a strong far-right note by talking about the “civilizational erasure” of Europe because of “mass migration.” Mr. Rubio said he did not want to see European nations “shackled by guilt and shame,” a term that echoed the language of the far-right party Alternative for Germany, or AfD.
On Sunday, Mr. Rubio met in Bratislava, Slovakia, with Robert Fico, the country’s populist prime minister. Both there and in Hungary, Mr. Rubio was talking to national leaders who were among the few European ones to have expressed strong support for President Trump. Their critical views of the European Union and of Ukraine also align with those of top Trump administration officials.
The European Commission decided in 2023 to withhold billions of euros of funding for Hungary because of concerns about corruption, democratic backsliding and the erosion of the legal system under Mr. Orban. That decision is being reviewed by courts of the European Union.
Mr. Rubio said that as long as Mr. Orban was leader, Mr. Trump would be “very interested” in finding ways to “provide assistance” if Hungary were to face “financial struggles.”
In November, Mr. Orban met with Mr. Trump at the White House. The American president granted Hungary a one-year exemption from the sanctions the United States has imposed on nations buying Russian oil. The State Department also announced an agreement for Hungary to purchase liquefied natural gas from the United States.
Mr. Orban has met repeatedly with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, defying other European leaders, and is building close commercial ties with China. Mr. Trump has spoken glowingly of the autocratic leaders of both of those large powers.
Mr. Rubio said Monday that Hungary had a right to act in its national interests. “We’re not asking any country in the world to isolate themselves from anybody,” he said.
In Munich on Saturday, Mr. Rubio gave a speech that sharply criticized European policies on immigration, military spending and climate change. He said the United States and Europe could continue to have a partnership if European nations changed their liberal approaches to many issues.
European officials in the room applauded Mr. Rubio, but some privately expressed skepticism later of the core points of Mr. Rubio’s speech as well as his planned visits to Slovakia and Hungary.
Edward Wong reports on global affairs, U.S. foreign policy and the State Department for The Times.
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