Diplomat: U.S. support won’t guarantee Orbán gains in election
U.S. support, particularly Vice President J.D. Vance’s visit to Budapest, is not a decisive factor in strengthening Viktor Orbán’s party’s position in the elections; it may have a limited or even counterproductive effect among Hungarian voters.
This opinion was expressed by Andrii Veselovskyi, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and advisor to the director of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, in a comment to Ukrinform.
“It is difficult to say whether Vance’s visit will affect Orbán’s party’s chances in the elections, because two factors must be taken into account: first, the overall decline in Orbán’s support in the country compared to previous elections, and second, the fact that the United States has significantly lost its authority in the world today,” the diplomat said.
He noted that the war the U.S. is currently waging against Iran creates “a mixed perception among Hungarian citizens of what the United States of America is today.”
According to Veselovskyi, this is not to say that Iran is “good,” pursues the right policies, and poses no danger not only to its neighbors but to the entire world by seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
“This is not up for debate; it goes without saying. But no one is allowed to achieve a good goal by bad means, and that is exactly what the United States of America is doing right now. Therefore, it is unclear whether Vance’s visit might even have the opposite effect: Hungarians will say, ‘Trump sent an emissary to “pull out” our leader; something fishy is going on here,’” the diplomat noted.
Responding to a question about why Trump chose the vice president specifically, Veselovskyi recalled that the U.S. Secretary of State visited Hungary in mid-February, following the Munich Security Conference.
The diplomat noted that Donald Trump is using “every tool at his disposal”: from supporting loyal media outlets that portray Orbán as a “unique figure and a true champion of American-style democracy” to visits by high-ranking officials—first Marco Rubio, and now J.D. Vance. He also suggested that under different circumstances, Trump might have visited Budapest in person.
Veselovskyi agreed with the view that the United States’ support for Viktor Orbán is a deliberate attempt to deepen divisions in Europe. According to him, while strengthening its own position, Washington may simultaneously weaken the EU by exacerbating internal conflicts and supporting individual leaders or countries that oppose the common line, thereby opening up additional market opportunities for itself.
At the same time, the diplomat emphasized that this logic is flawed, since the United States’ main global competitor is China, not the EU: the economies of Europe and America are interconnected; they are not systemic rivals.
He also rejected the assumption that Trump is deliberately seeking to strengthen Russia by dividing Europe, noting that this is more of a side effect.
“But it is unclear how the current president came to believe that a weak Europe is a positive for Washington. It is completely wrong,” Veselovskyi emphasized.
As reported by Ukrinform, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance arrived in the Hungarian capital of Budapest to support Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s election campaign ahead of the April 12 parliamentary elections, which could shake his 16-year tenure in power.
Photo: Magyarország Kormánya