Spanish
The United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, will travel next week to Hungary to hold meetings with senior government officials of Viktor Orbán, in a visit that comes after President Donald Trump's support for the Hungarian prime minister and at a time of renewed friction between Washington and the European Union.
The State Department itself confirmed that the objective of the displacement is to strengthen bilateral and regional cooperation, with special emphasis on international peace processes and the energy relationship between both countries.
According to the State Department spokesperson, Tommy Pigott, Rubio will meet in Budapest with Hungarian authorities to "strengthen our shared bilateral and regional interests, including our commitment to peace processes to resolve global conflicts and to the energy partnership between the United States and Hungary."
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The official agenda includes meetings over two days, as part of a tour that will also include Slovakia. The visit to Hungary takes place in a particular political situation for Orbán, who is facing the most competitive campaign since he came to power. The prime minister is seeking a fifth consecutive term in the elections scheduled for April 12, with polls showing him behind the force led by Peter Magyar, a former official of the ruling party turned government critic.In a message posted on social media, the U.S. president called Orbán "a true friend, fighter, and winner." Orbán is one of the few leaders in the European Union who maintains a smooth relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and has been a recurring obstacle within the community bloc for the adoption of tougher measures against Moscow for the war in Ukraine.
In recent weeks, friction with the European Union escalated again after Trump publicly mentioned the possibility of the United States taking control of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, a NATO member country. That proposal generated a strong reaction in European capitals and revived the debate about the solidity of the transatlantic alliance. The relationship between Orbán and the US government was also marked, in the recent past, by sensitive economic decisions. During a visit by the Hungarian prime minister to the White House last year, Trump granted Hungary a sanctions waiver for the import of oil and gas from Russia, a measure that was viewed with concern by European partners. The relationship between Washington and Budapest was very different during the Joe Biden administration. On several occasions, the then-president accused Orbán of "seeking a dictatorship," referring to restrictions on independent media and policies that affected the rights of sexual minorities. Before arriving in Budapest, Rubio will lead a large U.S. delegation at the Munich Security Conference, one of the main international forums on foreign policy and defense. The president of the meeting, former diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger, pointed out that more than 50 members of the United States Congress will participate in this year's edition, along with heads of government and state from the European Union. Ischinger warned that the political context is marked by a deterioration of trust between both sides of the Atlantic.
