Trump-Orban meeting at the White House, Ukraine and Russian oil on the agenda

Washington (USA), 7 November (LaPresse) – Donald Trump will shortly receive Viktor Orban at the White House. The US president and the Hungarian prime minister will have a bilateral lunch at 11.45 a.m. (5.45 p.m. in Italy). Orban landed in Washington yesterday, accompanied by a large delegation: his closest aides, members of the government, MEPs and representatives of the business world. After his arrival, the Hungarian prime minister met with Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, in Washington. ‘We stand firmly alongside the Bolsonaros in these difficult times: friends and allies who never give up,’ he later wrote on X. Orbán and the former Brazilian leader have long enjoyed a good relationship. In February 2024, Bolsonaro took refuge in the Hungarian embassy to avoid arrest, but left after two days. Orbán is on his sixth official visit to the United States: three NATO summits (1999, 2012 and 2024); the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit; two visits to the White House, in 1998 and 2019. In October 1998, Orbán met with President Bill Clinton in the Oval Office six months before Hungary joined NATO. At the time, Clinton praised Orbán’s ‘young, vigorous and progressive leadership’. During the visit, Orbán presented Clinton with a letter from a professor who had taught them both at Oxford. In May 2019, Donald Trump welcomed him to the Oval Office, praising his uncompromising immigration policies.