As something of an unusual reward for his undying support, Donald Trump has elected to exempt Victor Orbán’s Hungary from sanctions against Russian oil and gas for exactly one year.
Trump gave a justification that seemed weak for the rest of Europe: “it’s very difficult for him [Orban] to get the oil and gas from other areas”.
This victory for Orbán took place as he visited the US White House.
It also feels incoherent, given that just last month, the USA blacklisted two of Russia’s largest oil companies: Rosneft and Lukoil.
As this was happening, EU countries issued new sanctions banning the import of Russian liquefied natural gas from January 2027.
Even before that, Trump said that he wouldn’t be sanctioning Russia, thus contradicting himself multiple times.
But the Kremlin showed nonchalance, responding that Russia is “immune” to sanctions.
Orbán had lamented that his land-locked country would be ruined to be cut off from Russia, framing this as nothing beyond a “physical reality”.
Let’s see how things will evolve by the time Hungarian elections roll around come Spring. If Orbán succeeds, it’s in his populist advantage: prices will stay lower, and they have risen throughout Europe even in the past few months.
Hungary has agreed to buy several hundred millions of dollars’ worth of US natural gas as part of the arrangement.
But Hungary will likely need EU support to gather the money — and it’s unlike Ursula von der Leyen would agree to that, given repeated conflicts the European Commission has had with Orbán and his government’s lack of transparency.
Trump flipped the script by pointing out that this is hypocritical: many European countries which could drill their own oil have continued to buy Russian on the sly, he says. Many people believed that sanctions had been total since 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine and assets were frozen. In reality it has represented a tapering-off rather than a full stop, compounding by India buying crude Russian oil at lower prices and refining it, and reselling it to the EU.
“He understands Putin and knows him very well… I think that Viktor feels we’re going to get that war ended in the not-too-distant future”, Trump commented.
“All the other governments prefer to continue the war because many of them think that Ukraine can win on the front line, which is a misunderstanding of the situation”, Orbán himself commented.
He also told Trump that Ukraine winning would be a miracle.
