We started the conversation with Gábor Csizmazia, a staff member at the John Lukacs Institute of the National University of Public Service, about how important small Hungary is to the USA. According to the expert, there are two states in Central and Eastern Europe that are most closely watched, and these are Romania and Poland. However, this current invitation is mostly addressed to Viktor Orbán.
At the meeting, the Hungarian side will probably again request an exemption from the ban on buying Russian oil. Earlier, Donald Trump responded as follows:
We, the US government, did not grant exemptions, but the US president can personally grant exemptions from sanctions to individual countries
– Gábor Csizmazia specified the possibilities. In addition, our goal is to maintain and strengthen good economic relations. The Americans, on the other hand, want to end the Russian-Ukrainian conflict at all costs, for which they are applying the current harsh sanctions. At the same time, they are strongly pushing nuclear energy cooperation in the procurement of American nuclear fuel, small modular reactor technologies and nuclear waste storage.
An agreement on nuclear cooperation may even be reached between the Hungarian and American leaders, the expert indicated.
The other important area is American liquefied natural gas (LNG), which the whole of Europe has been encouraged to purchase, but this is not so easy in the case of Hungary, as it is quite difficult without a sea and an LNG terminal. However, it is not ruled out that Hungary will participate in such American development in the near future.
In connection with the sanctions prohibiting the purchase of Russian crude oil, the question was also raised as to why the Americans did not target infrastructure elements (refineries, well networks) and banned the processing and sale of Russian crude oil, but only trading companies, such as Lukoil.
We talked about how both sides agree on peacemaking in Ukraine, although they have different ideas about how to achieve it.
Regarding the Budapest summit that has not yet taken place, Gábor Csizmazia firmly stated that there will definitely be an invitation to Hungary for Donald Trump. However, a Budapest summit does not depend on us, but mostly on the participation of the Russian and American sides, not to mention what the role of Ukrainian President Zelensky will be at this event.
The program also discussed:
