US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is visiting Slovakia and Hungary to discuss energy deals and peace initiatives with nationalist leaders.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán agree with Trump’s agenda on migration and Ukraine and are fierce critics of the European Union.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio began his Central European tour in Bratislava, Slovakia, on Sunday, where he held talks with Prime Minister Robert Fico. Rubio will also visit Hungary’s Viktor Orbán on Monday.
Both Hungary and Slovakia are considered key allies of US President Donald Trump in Europe.
The latest US National Security Strategy, published last year, warned of a “civilisational decline” in Europe and called for greater cooperation with nationalist forces in the EU.
Rubio left for Slovakia after delivering a speech at the Munich Security Conference, where he said the US and Europe share a common destiny but warned that Europe’s cultural and economic decline must be reversed and that mass migration must be stopped.
According to the State Department, the US wants to strengthen cooperation with Bratislava on nuclear energy, energy diversification and the modernization of the Slovak army.
Robert Fico visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago in January to discuss a nuclear deal. Slovakia intends to buy nuclear reactors from the US in a project that could be worth around €13bn to €15bn, with the US company Westinghouse possibly providing technology.
Robert Fico is a leftist nationalist politician who is aligned with Trump’s political agenda on illegal migration and the war in Ukraine, and he is highly critical of the European Union which his country is a member of.
Slovakia and Hungary continue to import oil and natural gas via pipelines from Russia and oppose the EU’s REPowerEU plan to phase out Russian fossil fuels by 2027.
Slovakia supports Trump’s peace efforts to end the war in Ukraine. Prime Minister Fico has criticized the EU’s military and financial support to Ukraine and called for peace negotiations instead. He was criticized by Brussels last year for visiting Russia’s Victory Day parade in May.
Marco Rubio will be in Hungary on Monday to meet Prime Minister Orbán, a right-wing conservative leader who supports Trump’s political agenda.
According to the State Department, the talks will focus on “the peace process to resolve global conflicts” and on the US-Hungary energy partnership.
Hungary was the first European nation to join Trump’s Board of Peace initiative, which aims to resolve global conflicts.
Prime Minister Orbán is critical about migration and EU’s green policies.
The US last year gave Hungary a one-year exemption from US secondary tariffs targeting countries importing Russian oil. In December, Hungary signed a deal with the US company Chevron to import 2 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US.
