Our article is being updated.

Viktor Orbán's convoy arrived at the White House an hour late. Donald Trump greeted the Prime Minister at the door. Before entering the building, the US president was asked if he would meet with Vladimir Putin in Budapest and whether Hungary could be exempted from sanctions against Russian oil. Trump said that the meeting was always a possibility, and answered the second question that Orbán is a great leader.

After the two politicians, the Hungarian negotiating delegation (Péter Szijjártó, János Lázár, Balázs Orbán, Marcell Bíró, János Máté, Fanny Kaminski) also entered the White House.

Trump and Orbán held a joint press conference. Trump began by saying they would discuss trade, energy, and the Russia-Ukraine war. Then he delved into US domestic politics and railed against Joe Biden.

Orbán said that US-Hungarian relations were bad under the Democratic government, but Trump has restored the relationship. He also said that the war in Ukraine is a priority for Hungary.

Regarding US sanctions against Russian oil, Trump said that the issue is still being discussed because landlocked Hungary has difficulty accessing oil. Orbán said that Russian oil will be one of the most important topics of their negotiations. The Adriatic oil pipeline cannot be the country's primary supply route for now, but it could become one in the future.

He believes Orbán will be very successful in the next Hungarian election. He does not know his opponent, by the way.

Trump said that Orbán knows Putin well, and according to the Hungarian prime minister, they can end the war soon. Orbán said that only the American and Hungarian governments are pro-peace, everyone else supports war in Europe.

In addition, the Hungarian government has also increased its defense spending to the 2 percent of GDP required by NATO. Orbán boasted that Hungary has zero illegal immigrants and complained that we have to pay the EU 1 million euros a day because of our refugee policy.

Trump said that almost all European leaders are his friends. He also told them that they should respect Orbán. Then he talked about how Biden opened the American borders, but he deported illegal immigrants. According to him, many people do not respect Orbán because they are jealous of him. But he has a bigger heart than anyone. Orbán said that he did not come to Trump to help him sort out his relationship with EU leaders. But to bring about a new golden age in the relationship between the two countries.

Trump said the biggest obstacle to holding the Budapest summit is that the Russians don't want to stand on the front lines. But he will soon end the war, which he inherited from Biden.

What will be the main questions?

After the press conference, the two delegations will hold closed-door talks over a working lunch. The biggest expectation is whether Orbán will succeed in wringing out an exemption for Hungary from the sanctions imposed by the United States on Russian oil companies, and if so, for how long (for example, until before or after the April 2026 elections) and at what price (i.e. what will Orbán promise Trump in return at the expense of the Hungarian budget).

Trump has previously said he would slap high tariffs on buyers of Russian energy, but it seemed that Viktor Orbán, while trying to convince him that Hungary and Slovakia could not part with Russian oil, convinced him for a while. Since then, Trump has hardened his stance, imposing sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft, and said that although Orbán asked for an exemption from this, he did not receive one.

In addition to Russian oil, other economic issues will also be on the agenda. The ruling party politicians have previously announced economic agreements beyond all imagination, including military and nuclear businesses.

Mini-nuclear power plants have been increasingly referred to by government members, and the nuclear agreement has already been signed by Péter Szijjártó. (We wrote more about small modular nuclear power plants here.) An important precedent for this was that the Trump administration lifted the sanctions imposed on American participation in the construction of Paks II in the summer, which was decided by Joe Biden.

We will soon publish an analytical article on the announced agreements, but in the meantime, it is worth reading our thematic articles on The Great March on Washington:

• We wrote about the potential effects of the sanctions imposed by the Americans here,
• the agreement that Orbán could publicly sell as grandiose here,
• the leaders after whom Orbán will take the White House, here,
• the nuclear agreement announced by Szijjártó, and here
.

History

Viktor Orbán is meeting Donald Trump for the sixth time today, the second meeting Trump has attended as a sitting president. The prime minister arrived in Washington with a huge entourage of ministers, advisers, business leaders, pro-government journalists and political influencers.

It is a big question as to what the real outcome of the Trump-Orbán meeting will be behind the enormous artificial noise created by the well-traveled influencers and propagandists, apart from the fact that the entire government propaganda was already proclaiming victory with such vigor before the start of the favoritism campaign as if there was no tomorrow.

The spectacular friendly relationship between Trump and Orbán has had relatively few results since Trump's second inauguration. It is true that Antal Rogán was removed from the sanctions list (a great help to Hungarian families) and travel restrictions on Hungarian citizens were lifted, the effects of which are of course tangible for travelers to the USA, but the double taxation agreement is still in force.

According to our information, six people will be meeting with the Americans at the White House during the working lunch with Donald Trump: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Construction and Transport János Lázár, Balázs Orbán, the Prime Minister's political director, János Máté, the Prime Minister's press secretary, and Marcell Bíró, the Prime Minister's chief national security advisor.