The Trump-Orbán ‘summit’ is finally happening in Washington on 13 May

In fact, President Donald Trump invited the Hungarian Prime Minister. This is the first time they meet, and they will discuss questions on energy security, US-Hungarian defence cooperation and bilateral relations, and on security in the Central-European region. 

Rocky road

Átlátszó reported today first that based on what their American sources told, Donald Trump was going to invite the Hungarian PM in May to Washington. During the American presidential election campaign, Viktor Orbán was the first PM who openly declared his support towards Trump. Therefore, after the inauguration of President Trump, the question was quickly raised when Washington is going to invite the Hungarian PM.

The Hungarian diplomacy told nothing about the background negotiations – when mfor.hu asked FM Péter Szijjártó about Orbán’s possible invitation to the White House the minister answered that there are no such issues at the moment that require a meeting between the two leaders. “Last time the secretary of the USA was here remained no open questions which we have not discussed” – he added.

According to atlatszo.hu, though Trump and Orbán agree on most of the ideological questions, American diplomacy’s attitude towards Hungary did not change until 2017. They criticised the attacks against democracy and fundamental rights and the modification of the democratic institutions.

Washington decided only at the end of 2017 that they

should be more forgiving in the case of Hungary

in order to avoid tossing the country into Vladimir Putin’s hands. This is what A. Wess Mitchell,  Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs between October 2017 and February 2019, could thank his nomination. In fact, after his resignation, Mitchell went back to work for the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Interestingly, Réka Szemerkényi, Orbán’s former ambassador to Washington, is the vice president of this think tank.

Some problems are still present

However, some bilateral issues remained, for example, according to atlatszo.hu, American diplomacy worried because the Hungarian government did not sign the defence cooperation agreement for 1.5 years. Finally, that happened only on 4 April in Washington. Furthermore, in the background, Washington criticised the Hungarian government a lot because Budapest did not support US efforts to