Hungarian leader visits White House to seek waiver on Russian oil sanctions • FRANCE 24 English

Hungarian leader visits White House to seek waiver on Russian oil sanctions • FRANCE 24 English

Their two leaders often compare to one another. Hungary’s nationalist prime minister Victor Orban meeting Donald Trump in Washington this Friday. Orbin a longtime Trump ally and will be meeting the US president for the first time bilaterally since Trump returned to the White House in January. While the two leaders are like-minded in their anti-immigration stances, they do have their differences. Joining us on the set is our foreign affairs editor Philip Tur. Hello to you Philip. Um discussions at the White House today guest will be focusing on Russian oil. Yeah, and I think for once there’s going to be a certain nervousness on the part of Victor Orban going to see Donald Trump. Remember, they are very close. I think Victor Orban is Donald Trump’s closest ally within the European Union. Uh he’s the only one who has ties, cordial ties with both Donald Trump on one side and Vladimir Putin on the other. Remember that’s where that summit was due to take place on Ukraine in Budapest, but the plug was pulled on that by Donald Trump shortly before it was due to to happen. Uh, so Victor Orbin’s going off to Washington to talk about oil. He’s been saying, “I need results.” And what results are we talking about here? What he wants is Donald Trump to be a little bit more user friendly towards Hungary because Hungary is uh dependent on Russian oil. If you look at the figures uh in 2024, 80% or 5 million tons of uh Russian oil came via a pipeline which has been called the friendship pipeline uh from Russia to Hungary to keep the economy afloat. Since Donald Trump introduced sanctions against two major Russian oil companies, one of them private, one of them state funded, uh Hungary is worried that this is going to lead to two things. First of all, an increase in prices. uh it will affect the car industry and other uh companies operating in Hungary. Uh it could also lead to an increase in prices of uh fruit uh vegetables heating uh many other factors that are uh useful for people every day in Hungary. Uh and I think there is also worry that this is going to affect the second point that the opinion poll ratings for Victor Orban ahead of elections next year. So all of these factors together mean that Victor Orban’s going to the White House. this afternoon. He met three times with Donald Trump last year at Mara Lago. Uh shows how close the two leaders are. But I think today he’s going to try to obtain some kind of stare of execution, if you like, from Donald Trump so that he can keep importing that Russian oil. Will Donald Trump be willing to listen or not? I think there is probably going to be some kind of negotiation going on behind the scenes. are expecting some kind of breakthrough that Donald Trump will do a favor to his close European ally. But we don’t we don’t know for sure what the two men are going to agree on. Yeah. And and back in Hungary, what do the opinion polls say about Victor Or? Right. Yeah. Those opinion polls. So um it’s not particularly good news for uh Victor Orban. He’s been in power for 15 years. There’s what has been called in uh many of the opposition papers in in Hungary Orban fatigue. uh Orban fatigue over um the fact that he is being more obstreporous closer to Russia in in hand inhand with Donald Trump. What they want is uh him to uh deal more with the economy, deal more with the higher food prices, healthcare, endemic corruption that is prevailent in Hungary. Uh if you look at the opinion polls, well, he’s got uh 37% for his Fides party, which is behind an opposition party on 48% uh by uh a former member of Fides called Peter Maguiar. Uh and I think that if an election were held today, it would Peter Maguiar would would win that election. That’s why Victor Orban’s going to Washington. He definitely wants Trump to play in his favor to try to boost his opinion poll ratings back home in Hungary.

Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban is due to meet Donald Trump in Washington on November 7 for the first time since his ally was re-elected US president. He is looking to seek a waiver on American sanctions on Russian oil, which it still heavily depends on despite EU efforts to emancipate itself from it. FRANCE 24’s Philip Turle tells us about the political strategy driving that meeting.
#Orban #Trump #RussianOil

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