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Hungary wants sanctions lifted, new tax deal in US talks
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó will meet with United States Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent on Wednesday, his ministry said in a statement.
In Washington, D.C. ahead of the meeting, Szijjártó said the sides would discuss rolling back sanctions that hurt Hungary’s interests and advancing bilateral cooperation. He added that the talks would address sanctions introduced in the last days of the Biden administration that hurt Hungary’s economic interests and put its energy security at risk, pointing to measures affecting the upgrade of the Paks nuclear power plant, payments for gas and the construction of a crude pipeline between Hungary and Serbia.
He also mentioned the inclusion of Antal Rogán, the cabinet minister, on a sanctions list as “petty revenge by the frustrated, outgoing [US] ambassador”. “It is my honest hope that we can advance on the matter of sanctions harming Hungary motivated by political revenge at the talks today,” he said.
Szijjártó said he believed the sides could agree to start talks on a new double taxation avoidance treaty to replace one that was cancelled by the Biden administration and discuss a new type of financial cooperation. He said Hungarian-American ties were entering a “new golden age” with President Donald Trump in office.
Szijjártó said an extraordinary meeting of the US-Hungary Business Council had been convened to promote closer ties. He noted that some 1,200 US-owned companies employed over 100,000 people in Hungary. Over the past ten years, 140 American companies have made big investments in Hungary with a value of HUF 1,000bn, supported by around HUF 140bn from the government, he said. Those projects have created 19,000 jobs, he added.
Read also:
Could someone please explain to Mr. Szijjártó the old treaty is never coming back?
Old Newsmax article – quite illustrative. Mr. Paul, a Republican, held up the adoption of the new treaty for well over a decade:
https://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/rand-paul-tax-treaty/2013/05/05/id/502854/
And the OLD Treaty was prone to abuse. ” Over the 44-year life of the 1979 treaty it became a notable source of problems for the United States. Freed from the Soviet yoke in the late 1980s, Hungary refashioned itself as a conduit jurisdiction, what some would consider a tax haven, and set out to attract investors from other countries to make U.S. investments through Hungarian entities. The treaty lacked a limitation on benefits provision, a measure designed to impede treaty shopping. LOB provisions had come into existence with the 1975 U.S. treaty with the United Kingdom, and the specific terms of the LOB article mutated over the years, growing in length and sophistication.”
Long read –
https://www.caplindrysdale.com/media/publication/150798_Tax%20Notes%20International.pdf
(and yes – treaty shopping is considered abusive / bad)